One of the secrets from my past is that I recorded two CDs of live comedy. Mostly it’s me playing the piano and singing, though there is also some talking. (I am better at talking than singing.) “Will Make Jokes for Food” came out in 2003, with the follow-up, “Monkeys and Pirates Are Funny,” in 2006. Some of the songs were written during that time, but a lot of them were much older, having been written for the Garrens Comedy Troupe at BYU between 1993 and 2001.
The CDs were basically self-released, and I sold them through my website and when I would do live shows, which wasn’t very often. Now they’re out of print, so I have uploaded many of the songs to iLike.com, where you can listen to them or download them. For free, even!
Here’s my iLike page. I’ve divided the songs not by album but by category, “General Merriment” and “Merriment Specific to Utah and/or Mormon Culture.” (The Mormons may be interested to know that included in that batch is a brand-new updated version of “The General Authorities Song.”) If you’re not familiar with Utah and/or Mormon culture, you won’t get the jokes in those songs, but trust me, they are hilarious. The other songs should be equally amusing to all persons regardless of geography or creed.
Not everything from the CDs is on here. I might add some more over time. There are a few songs that I just don’t think are funny anymore. There are others that I like but where my performance on the recordings is subpar. I had a tendency to play things increasingly faster. I also had a tendency to play some wrong notes on the piano. That’s the trouble with someone who doesn’t do a lot of live shows recording live albums: I wasn’t practiced at getting things exactly right. I’ve toyed with the idea of re-recording some of these songs in the studio (i.e., my apartment, with my computer), but then of course we’d lose the audience reaction, which I think adds to the effect. So I don’t know.
Also, there are two songs, “Not Fooling Anyone” and “Mel Gibson,” that came after the CDs. The latter was after Mel’s drunk-driving anti-Jew tirade, but before the racist misogyny tirades.
(If you want liner notes on the songs, including the ones not online, here’s “Will Make Jokes for Food,” and here’s “Monkeys and Pirates Are Funny.”)
