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Things that Alanis Morissette Finds "Ironic"

Complete the missing lyrics to the song "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette.
Note: Don't use these as examples of irony in your English class!
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: May 5, 2016
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First submittedApril 23, 2016
Times taken20,047
Average score70.0%
Rating4.26
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Lyric
An old man turned ninety-eight / He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife
+16
Level 76
Apr 23, 2016
Thanks for the note! I once saw comedian Ed Byrne having everyone in stitches by tearing this song apart... Ironic? What's f---ing ironic about rain on your wedding day? That's just f---ing inconvenient! and so on and so on.
+14
Level 77
Apr 25, 2016
Or is it ironic that song is actually called ironic and is not in fact...ironic? You know what IS ironic? Something made of iron...
+13
Level 65
May 6, 2016
Wouldn't that be ferrous rather than ironic?
+4
Level 62
May 4, 2016
While comedians have been making gold off of this for a while... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb0YoRMXIY0#t=10m3s

Just thought I'd throw this out there. You'll need to watch for a few minutes to get the full point, but that's the world we live in. The whole video is great though.

tl;dw: The song's lyrics are about irony, just not situational irony, which is everyone's favorite kind.

+3
Level 79
May 4, 2016
Hooray for Vsauce!
+1
Level 65
Mar 4, 2021
No, I've studied the three types and there are only a couple times when the singer meets the other two, but not in the way she intended. However, most of the song is unfortunate events that are closer to situational than the other ironies, but not actually ironic.
+2
Level 77
Nov 29, 2021
VSauce is awful. I'm pretty sure his channel started off as a grab bag of stupid video game garbage and pranks. I'm pretty sure he just reads whatever script he's handed now.
+4
Level 76
Dec 1, 2021
bad opinion
+2
Level 58
May 9, 2016
Well the fifth and eighth lines seem ironic. But that's it.
+2
Level 46
Jul 21, 2018
I doubt she really cares, she made like a billion dollars on the album.
+2
Level 23
Jan 9, 2019
Yes, the song is called "Ironic" yet none of the lyrics describe irony. Which is the ironic part. In a song called Ironic, you would expect irony in the song
+1
Level 72
Apr 28, 2016
Nice quiz. Love the song!
+4
Level 79
Apr 29, 2016
Ed Byrne eventually signed off this routine by summing up, the only thing that's ironic about the song 'Ironic' is that it's sung by a woman who doesn't know the meaning of the word!
+7
Level 78
May 4, 2016
I don't think that word means what she thinks it means.
+1
Level 78
May 4, 2016
Exactly!
+1
Level 43
May 4, 2016
And she spoofed it with James Corden a month or so ago!
+2
Level 28
May 5, 2016
Inconceivable
+1
Level 69
May 4, 2016
One of the modern classics! Slight error in one clue - it's *a* death row pardon. Also, on the 10 year anniversary acoustic version, she sings that she meets the man of her dreams 'And then meeting his beautiful husband'. Should accept 'beautiful husband' as an answer on that last one.
+1
Level ∞
May 4, 2016
Fixed the mistake
+1
Level ∞
May 5, 2016
and p.s., we will allow variations with husband now
+1
Level 44
Jan 9, 2019
I got it using "Husband", I put it as a laugh as I remember the lyrics inside the CD cover....glad someone else remembered that!
+2
Level 58
Mar 27, 2020
That seems dumb ... not for any social reasons, but because it doesn't rhyme with "knife". While Alanis is at it, she might as well change the line where the guy says "Well isn't this nice" to something from Brodie Bruce's airplane story in Mallrats.
+3
Level 75
Nov 29, 2021
I think it's great. Someone listening, regardless of whether they know the lyrics, will expect "wife" because it's an easy rhyme. Hearing "husband" subverts expectations, which makes it both funny and memorable. Humans tend to enjoy being misled like that- it's why so much comedy hangs on misleading the audience into being surprised by the punchline.
+1
Level 76
Jan 18, 2024
Yeah, it's a pretty common type of joke that's specifically playing off the audience's expectation of hearing the word "wife."
+23
Level 60
May 4, 2016
If I had ten thousand spoons, I'd invite 10000 Maniacs over for soup.
+2
Level 74
May 4, 2016
It's comments like these that are just crying out for a "like" option
+3
Level 88
Jul 8, 2018
And now we do.
+1
Level 20
May 4, 2016
I'm pretty sure this was my idea on my "music things" quiz but I didn't know how to format a fill-in-the-blanks quiz in the quizmaker so I failed...
+2
Level ∞
May 5, 2016
To do fill in the blanks put the {missing} {words} in brackets!
+1
Level 71
May 6, 2016
Huh, I've been hearing these lyrics as:

It's a black fly in your blue Chardonnay

It's a free ride when you're already there

It's the good advice that you just can't take

+1
Level 47
May 7, 2016
cn you make lottery also lotto
+6
Level 62
May 8, 2016
But that's not the lyrics?
+2
Level 88
Jul 8, 2018
It's ironic Alanis Morissette's lyrics are parodied when she's more unintelligible than Bob Dylan. I'm not sure I've understood anything she's ever sung.
+2
Level 84
Oct 1, 2019
Maybe if she was less angry, she'd be easier to understand.
+1
Level 80
Jan 8, 2019
I had Cabernet stuck in my head...
+2
Level 74
Jan 8, 2019
Garibaldi biscuit would have been quite ironic
+1
Level 57
Jan 8, 2019
What an awful song. Not one thing is ironic. Just all bummers.
+2
Level 75
Jan 11, 2019
The no smoking sign is quite ironic
+1
Level 57
Dec 18, 2020
Not really.
+1
Level 65
Mar 4, 2021
No, the cigarette break would have to ironically be the reason that you couldn't smoke. The smoking sign is fully intended to stop smoking. The better, more ironic alternative to this is: "You're working on a hard, long day

Your boss decides to let you take a little break

His reasoning is that he wants a quality job and he'll need attention to pay

Excited, you walk right across the concrete that you'd just paved". That has nothing to do with the cigarette, a rather challenging example, and it's way to long. However, it's a pretty basic example of real situational irony.

+3
Level 77
Nov 29, 2021
How about this: The "No Smoking" sign is put up on a particularly windy patio, which allows people to use it as a windbreak to smoke.
+1
Level 44
Jan 9, 2019
The guy whose plane went down, she insinuates the flight was being taken to conquer his fear of flying. If that's the case, then that ONE example is ironic...the rest? Nope.
+2
Level 65
Mar 4, 2021
That example does have situational irony, but not exactly in the way you described. The better one is he waited his whole life to fly because he was scared the plane would crash, and that actually resulted in him being on a crashing plane. There is also a minor example of verbal irony when he says "Well isn't this great".
+2
Level ∞
Nov 22, 2021
Homer: And so, Mr. Malloy, it seems that the cat burglar was caught by the very person who was trying to catch him.

Skinner: How ironic.

+2
Level 68
Aug 19, 2019
ahh what a beautiful song!!! great quiz, i love it
+1
Level 67
Nov 29, 2021
Great, now that song will be in my head all day....
+1
Level 57
Nov 29, 2021
The guy from Full House dumped her, so everyone had to suffer. I guess the rule is, is that you never dump a Canadian broad.
+1
Level 67
Nov 29, 2021
That's the easiest five points I ever scored.
+1
Level 60
Nov 30, 2021
Until taking this quiz just now I always thought she was singing, "It's a green light when you're already late" instead of "It's a free ride when you've already paid." Also I get that a black fly in your Chardonnay, rain on your wedding day, and a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break are just inconveniences and not at all ironic, but how are the others not examples of irony?
+1
Level 76
Jan 18, 2024
Because irony is when the result is the opposite of or absurdly incongruous to the expected or intended results. As it is, these are all situations that might be the opposite of what you want or hope for, but not the opposite of what would be expected.

For instance, the 98-year-old man winning the lottery and dying the next day would've been ironic if he'd won a potion of immortality, but the excitement of winning gave him a fatal heart attack. Similarly, the death row pardon would've been ironic if the executioners took the ringing phone as the signal to start the execution. In both cases you would expect the event to save/extend someone's life, but it ends up actively killing them instead. Or, it would be ironic if being late caused you to take a detour that let you avoid the traffic jam everyone else was caught in, letting you get to your destination earlier than everyone else. Being late, in and of itself, made you earlier.