The 12 Best Laughs Recorded on Albums - Let's Laugh!
Laughter is the best medicine is it not? It really is. Music in and of itself is incredible medicine - heck it even feels as necessary as oxygen to me. But music doesn’t typically make us laugh per se. It certainly makes me smile plenty, sometimes it does actually make me laugh, and some music is inherently funnier than most (The Beastie Boys come to mind), but it’s not that often that we hear artists laughing on a recording. This list was actually really difficult to compile - laughs are hard to find. But a few of my favorite moments in songs are marked by a laugh - sometimes as part of a lyric, sometimes spontaneous and genuine, sometimes even contrived / performed, and it’s time to celebrate laughter in music with some of these moments! I didn’t “rank” these but I did tee up the videos at the appropriate time stamps from YouTube for you!
Roxanne - The Police (Outlandos d’Amour 1978) Let’s start with Roxanne and the laugh that happens just a few seconds in. I heard Sting say in an interview that this was just a spontaneous thing - that he mistakenly sat on a piano keyboard and laughed - they liked it and kept it in the recording. You actually hear the piano at about 3 1/2 seconds and then the laughter follows. Classic!
Seek and Destroy - Metallica (Kill ‘Em All 1983) I don’t listen to this song a ton - I heard it too many times live over the years with James Hetfield adding a cheesy singalong to it and that kind of ruined it for me. But Kill ‘Em All still stands as a very pure Metallica thrash aesthetic before they expanded their sound, and Seek and Destroy was quite a menacing anthem for its time in the early days of thrash in the Bay Area recently documented in the fantastic documentary Murder In The Front Row. Hetfield’s “Hahahaha!” on the end of the last repetition of the title lyric is nice and evil - the joy in destruction!
Tricky - The Time (B-side to Ice Cream Castles 1984) I’m not convinced this is The Time at all. It’s pretty funny what I find out when I do some snooping around for some of these blog posts. This track was recorded at the same session that yielded the extended jam Cloreen Bacon Skin on Prince’s Crystal Ball collection. And like that one Tricky is indeed not The Time. It’s Prince and Morris Day only, with Morris on drums and Prince doing a silly voice and sounding a bit like Morris. I always thought this track was amazing - it’s just SO silly and I got it when I bought the 45 vinyl single of The Time’s Ice Cream Castles back in 1984 when it was released ahead of the album of the same name. I googled Tricky right after I wrote the first line with the strikethrough and learned that according to princevault.com the track is about George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. Ha - I never knew that. I just figured they were bagging on some poor groupie? Anyway the laughs at each break during the silly insults always cracked me up and still do - and I don’t know who is doing the laughing (there’s more than one person at one point - maybe most of it is Morris).
Onedayimgonnabesomebody - The Time (What Time Is It? 1982) Yep - The Time is here twice and frankly they could easily have been included here a couple more times too. I’m a sucker for their silliness and the group crackup at the end of this track after the song abruptly ends with what makes you think your needle just destroyed your vinyl and the group quote “WE DON’T LIKE NEW WAVE” is amazing. 12 year old me in particular LOVED it and much like Tricky I still do.
Laughing - 54-40 (Fight For Love 1989) Canadian band 54-40 never made it very big but I’m still a big fan of their 1989 album Fight For Love and there is something sweet about how singer Neil Osborne gently sings “Ha…ha…ha…ha…” to replace the second half of the lyric structure of “If you’re gonna be laughing at me” towards the end of the song. It was one of the first songs that came to my mind for this list.
Every Little Counts - New Order (Brotherhood 1986) Bernard Sumner cracks up right in the middle of singing the lovely lyric “Every little counts, when I am with you. I think you are a pig, you should be in a zoo!” It’s great because it’s such a curve ball in a song that starts out like a heartfelt love song. He even lets out a little giggle towards the end of the track during the doo doo doos…
Brain Damage - Pink Floyd (Dark Side Of The Moon 1973) The laugh of the “lunatic” starts this classic LP in the intro Speak To Me and then reappears for the closing medley of Brain Damage / Eclipse. As a reference to madness or mental health in general even in 1973 it wasn’t a laugh that was meant to be “funny” - more haunting really - and it’s probably a reference to Syd Barrett since Syd is the specter that hovers over everything Pink Floyd did after Syd was no longer in the band. Syd’s trials with mental health have been well documented but largely misunderstood and there’s actually a new documentary about him that I’m very much looking forward to.
Wipe Out - The Surfaris (Wipe Out 1963) The classic cackle that kicks off the surfer classic Wipe Out is the voice of the band manager Dale Smallin - everyone has heard it at one time or another and Ace Frehley did his own tribute to it in his 1978 track Wiped Out that wasn’t about a surfing wipeout like the original but of getting “wiped out” drunk.
Milk It - Nirvana (In Utero 1993) Just before Kurt Cobain utters the “Test……MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAT” at the 3:13 mark he utters a little maniacal nothing giggle that goes a long way. One of those things that is oddly satisfying - you know it’s coming and I don’t why it’s so great when it happens, but it just is. It’s hard for me to fathom that this one is 30 years old…
Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train (Blizzard Of Oz 1980) Maybe the most well known laugh on this list as Ozzy calls us to action with the “All ABOOOOOOARD” command at the beginning of the second track of his solo career after flaming out famously with Black Sabbath after inventing heavy metal with them a decade earlier.
U2 - Wire (The Unforgettable Fire 1984) Bono channels a little crazy with the little maniacal giggle after the command to place your bets - time to choose. A bit cryptic and it’s just a blip really but once again for anyone obsessed with The Unforgettable Fire like I’ve always been it’s one that has impact in a song that taps into a little of the primal madness that lurks in our subconscious - a song about addiction (?). Listening to it now the giggle is less substantial than it was in my head but once again that just speaks to the impact it has. Kind of a if you know you know sort of thing…?
La Grange - ZZ Top (Tres Hombres 1973) I think that’s a laugh….right? I’m actually not 100% sure but it’s close enough and it’s awesome. Billy Gibbons lets it loose for the first time in this classic rocker at the :41 mark as he waxes poetic about the nice girls they’ve got at that shack outside La Grange (The Chicken Ranch brothel that The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas was based on) in that deep mesmerizing drawl…
So there they are - I hope you got a little chuckle out of these and if there are some really good ones I’ve missed please let me know!
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can follow Doug’s band Vintage Playboy at their Facebook page here.
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