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AmbieUnited States
San Mateo
California
Do you want to play a board gaaame?
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As you may know, I like writing song parodies and I've made a bunch of them. So I'd like to share some tips on how to write a song parody. Note - these are my opinions on what makes a good song parody, but each person has their own style.
I think the following are the most important tips to follow (in descending order):
1. Pick a good song
Other than picking a good topic for your parody, the song choice is probably the most important and what will make the parody most memorable. Some things to consider when you make a song parody:
a) Is the song well known? If people know the song, they're more likely to listen to and enjoy your parody.
b) Is the song repetitive? While writing a parody of 'Around the World' by Daft Punk may be incredibly easy, it would be pretty boring. Try to pick a song with varied lyrics so you can write more in your parody!
c) Can you sing it? This is only important if you're planning on singing the song. Remember, you can always switch the key to be in your voice range, and you can also jump octaves if you need to.
For these reasons, I think Disney songs and other musical songs are normally pretty good to parody, since they have interesting lyrics, their choruses aren't too repetitive (like a bunch of pop songs), and they're well-known.
2. Follow rhyme scheme
The most recognizable parts of songs are the rhyming patterns. Now, this doesn't mean that you have to use the same exact rhymes as the original song. In fact, I think that's kind of boring, and it's more fun to use different words. But if the original song is (for example) Be Our Guest, and there are a bunch of rhymes with 'guest', then whatever word you replace 'guest' with will need to have a bunch of rhymes with that word. Try to keep track of the rhyming scheme of the original song so you can match it.
3. Follow meter/rhythm
This is fairly important to make the song sound right when it's sung. Pay attention to the stresses of the syllables in each line of the song, and try to match that when you're making the parody. For example, the line 'Cruella de Vil' has stress on the 2nd and 5th syllable: 'cru-ELL-a de VIL.' When you replace it with something else, try to pick something that naturally follows the same pattern. So saying something like 'Ambie is so weird,' even though it has 5 syllables, wouldn't sound right because of the natural stress ('AM-bie is so WEIRD'). But rearranging you could do 'That Ambie is weird' ('that AM-bie is WERD') and it'd fit into the original song. A good way to see if your parody works is to sing it to yourself in your head while you're writing it.
4. Follow the number of syllables
This is the least important thing to match, since songs don't always tend to follow their own number of syllables between verses. When you follow the meter, generally the number of syllables is similar. The main thing is you don't want to have more stressed syllables than the original song. It's fine to have one or two extra unstressed syllables to make your words make sense, but it's always nice to match the syllables exactly.
You'll also want to have some humor and be able to write whatever you want the parody to be about... but my tips are more about the structure of the song. Also, keep in mind that these are guidelines, not hard rules. Sometimes you can't get a perfect rhyme, but near rhymes (or strange pronunciations of words) can work out. And sometimes you just can't get the meter to work out, so you'll just have to say something strangely. But for me, rhyme and meter are the most important to follow, because otherwise the song will sound weird and/or be hard to sing.
Have fun writing parodies! If you want to see some that I've made, they're on my youtube (playlist).
Ambierona Parodies
I make song parodies from Disney songs about board games. I'll post the generic ones here (the specific game ones I post as videos on the game page).
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