Product Description

Even the chapter titles in this book will make you smile! How to Write Funny Lyrics: The Comedy Songwriting Manual takes the reader step-by-step from concept to finished product, showing the way to create lyrics that get laughs. Pollock's clear, friendly style of instruction is entertaining and easy to understand. This is a great gift for the aspiring or professional songwriter, and an essential addition to any lyricist's library.

This is a good book. Michael Pollock is a brilliant instructor. It wouldn't surprise me if he taught a rock to write funny lyrics. -- Lee Costello Executive Director, The Second City Los Angeles

After a comedy lyric writing workshop with Michael Pollock, cast members in the show I directed at The Second City were inspired and said, `Wow, we can do this!' Later, audiences died laughing at their song. -- Holly Wortell, actress/comedienne, ABC's Life With Bonnie

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #582685 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-15
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

About the Author
Michael Pollock is musical director of The Second City LA and teaches workshops nationwide. He has appeared on The Drew Carey Show, The Tonight Show and Evening at the Improv. He is also the author of Musical Improv Comedy: Creating Songs in the Moment and Musical Direction for Improv and Sketch Comedy.

David Razowsky is Artistic Director of The Second City LA. He has written, directed and performed in Second City shows all over the US. TV audiences know him as the voice of Dixon (the world's coolest adult) on the ABC animated series The Weekenders. David has also appeared on Spin City, Roseanne, and on Late Night with David Letterman as the voice of Albert Brooks? parrot.

Excerpted from How to Write Funny Lyrics: The Comedy Songwriting Manual by Michael Pollock. Copyright © 2006. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction Your Preflight Pep Talk Smile, chuckle, giggle, guffaw, convulse, lose control, cry! On a gradient scale, people react to "funny? in all these ways, and they like it. They enjoy the experience so much, they gravitate to others who make them laugh, and voraciously seek out all forms of funny media. They buy tickets to see live performances that promise craziness and insanity. Laughter even has an afterglow. It's not only a great pleasure to laugh; it feels good when it's over. "Wow, I haven't laughed like that in a long time." When comedy and song come together, we have a particularly memorable product. Broadway standards abound with humor and every style of music has its share of satirical or goofy tunes. Words are the first, most important element of a funny song--the words get the laughs and music ices the cake. How do you create funny? Is it a science? Sure it is "that's why there are places like The Second City Training Centers, where students learn all about comedy; comedy improv, comedy sketches and comedy songwriting. This book will teach you to write funny lyrics with your own sense of humor and help to exploit your genius! There are dependable procedures for writing comedy and for writing songs. In the ensuing chapters we'll discuss what you need to know, and have a lot of fun along the way. Here comes Chapter One.

Customer Reviews

INSTANT EASY COMEDIC MENTORING FROM A PRO
I've been an internationally recording artist for too many years to mention, and have written, produced and starred in a Rock Opera with Rod McKuen & Mary Jo Catlett. After moving my musical to Las Vegas, I became an assistant musical director of Second City here and was inspired to take my songwriting into the comedy world. Michael's book, "HOW TO WRITE FUNNY LYRICS" has opened up my approach to taking a larger story, breaking it down and pinpointing the truly ironic and funny aspects and then intelligently putting them to music. His systems and ideas have speeded up the learning curve and I am already writing and producing parodies of movies and books. From one professional musician/composer to another, I want to say to Michael Pollock, thank you for helping me to open up my creative funny brain cells and for saving me so much time in putting the ideas to music.

Good for beginners... only
Michael's previous two books were great, but somehow "how to write funny lyrics" missed the mark for me. Maybe it's because I already knew that comedy should be unexpected, or maybe it's because I already knew how to pick rhyming words. Either way, I didn't learn much from this book.

The book spends a lot of time presenting exercises to try, which is great, but spends too long presenting (a few) song structures. There is no CD in this one, which was one of the most valuable parts of the previous books.

Can you learn how to write funny lyrics from this book? Probably, if you didn't know already. I suppose I was really looking for a book called "How to write FUNNIER lyrics".

So Good It's Required
As the head of the Music Program at The Second City in Chicago, I've read a lot of books on songwriting. This is the simplest, most effective and inspiring text on the fundamentals of comedic lyric writing available. Michael's approach is dead-on. So dead-on, in fact, that "How to Write Funny Lyrics" is required reading for all students in our Comedic Songwriting Program.