In the 1940s and 1950s, as part of a federal pest and rodent control program, pigeons in Boston were fed corn that had been laced with strychnine. This incident inspired Tom Lehrer to write one of his most famous (and hilarious) songs, “Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park.” In an interview with Paul D. Lehrman, Lehrer described what happened when his label, Unicorn Records, hired Richard Hayman to orchestrate the song:

I will never forget the day … when Hayman came in, it was 10 in the morning, a regular union group, and they put the music in front of them, no title, no lyrics, no nothing, and they ran through it a few times and they got it. So he said okay, and I went into the booth to record, and the engineer said “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, take one” and the piano player said “Whaat?” and literally fell off the bench. I had never seen anybody do that. They had no idea. It was just this pleasant little waltz, and they thought it was some commercial or something. And he just collapsed. That was the only time I had ever seen someone just fall off.

What shocked the unnamed piano player was the complete mismatch between the music—which Lehrer here describes as a “pleasant little waltz”—and the lyrics, which are far from pleasant. The song is a waltz in G major, sung brightly. The lyrics begin with some generic remarks about the joys of spring. Soon, however, they take a much darker turn, as Lehrer sings of the joy he takes in murdering pigeons, laughing and delighting in their deaths. In other words, the lyrics and the music are discordant: They evoke clashing moods and emotions.

I want to consider briefly two questions about discordant songs like this one:

(1) What features make some discordant songs funny? Why are some discordant songs serious and others funny?

(2) When, if ever, is it morally wrong to laugh at such songs? Is it, for example, wrong to laugh at Tom Lehrer’s celebration of bird killing?

Funny or Ironic?

Consider the first question. Part of what I want to get at here is the difference between a mismatch that generates irony and a mismatch that is funny. Joseph Moore argues that a song in which there is a mismatch between lyrics and music can produce a type of irony he calls melic irony. One of his examples is Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” which couples optimistic lyrics with a downbeat melody, producing a serious, ironic response. It’s not in the least funny.

Why is “Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park” funny while “Perfect Day” isn’t? Two candidate differences stand out. First, funny discordant songs are often surprising; the clash or subversion is introduced suddenly and without warning. It has long been noted that surprise is a key feature of humor. The surprise felt by the pianist hired to record “Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park” illustrates this. By contrast, the listener’s discovery of the irony in “A Perfect Day” is typically slow and gradual.

Perhaps a more important difference, however, between purely ironic and purely humorous discordant songs emerges from the seriousness of the subject matter. “Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park” does not prompt us to have a serious reflection about animal rights or pest control policies. Lou Reed’s “A Perfect Day,” on the other hand, does take up the serious matter of what makes a person happy. Reed’s song also contains a lyrical line in which the narrator doubts his own goodness, dropping the discord for a moment to let a sad thought in.

When (If Ever) Is It Wrong to Laugh at a Song?

Let’s turn now to the second question. Is there something morally wrong with making light of a serious moral matter? In the literature on the ethics of humor, one standard view says that to laugh, or to find something funny, is to endorse an attitude that can be morally appropriate or inappropriate. However, as David Benatar has noted, it often seems that we do not need to endorse an immoral attitude in order to find it funny; merely recognizing that this attitude is held by others can be enough. But, even if Benatar is right, there are other, less controversial reasons to call some humor wrong: Laughing at an immoral joke might reveal or even strengthen immoral views and prejudices.  

In “Peace,” a 2004 episode of Da Ali G Show, Sacha Baron Cohen, playing a character called Borat, sings a song called “In My Country There is Problem (Throw the Jew Down the Well).” Borat, as portrayed by Baron Cohen, is anti-Semitic, misogynistic, rude, and ignorant. The song is meant to sound like an upbeat country sing-along in G major. Like “Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park,” the lyrics begin rather innocently, and the mismatch takes a bit of time to arrive. The first verse complains about the poor transportation systems in Kazakhstan, and the first chorus invites the audience to sing along as Baron Cohen urges everyone to throw transportation down the well. But the second and third verses identify “the Jew” as Kazakhstan’s main problem, and subsequent choruses call for throwing the Jew down the well. In effect, the song ends up enthusiastically supporting pogroms, and Borat encourages the audience to sing along, which many of them do.

So far, “In My Country There is Problem” is similar to “Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park.” Both generate humor from the incongruity between upbeat, happy music and lyrics that seem to celebrate moral wrongdoing. However, three differences stand out. First, Baron Cohen’s song is far darker than Lehrer’s—ethnic cleansing is a far more serious moral wrong than animal cruelty. Second, as already noted, “In My Country There is Problem” is a sing-along, and the audience sings along with gusto. Third, Baron Cohen is concealing his identity during this performance. Rather than performing as himself, a Jewish comedian, he attempts to fool his audience into believing that he is an anti-Semitic professional musician.

There has been considerable controversy about the character of Borat in general and this performance in particular. We can think about the ethics of this song in two parts. First, there is the perspective of the live audience. The song was performed at Country West Dancing & Lounge in Tucson, Arizona. So, our first question is whether there is something morally wrong with a song that invites people to celebrate the idea of pogroms.

Answering this question is hard because there are different accounts of what was actually going on during the performance. The manager of Country West, Bill Sandy, seems to have believed that “Borat” was a real person and that his performance was sincere. But Carol Pierce, an employee who is herself Jewish, claims that those singing along and enjoying themselves knew that “Borat” was not real and were in on the joke: “You could tell right away it was a wig he was wearing, and a fake mustache. I would say 99% of the people in here saw that, too.” On Pierce’s view, audience members were not genuinely expressing anti-Semitic views but enjoying a comedic performance, just as a Tom Lehrer audience might.

Were the members of the live audience laughing because they genuinely endorsed the anti-Semitism in the song? Or were they “in on the joke” and laughing along with Baron Cohen, not with Borat? The former would be wrong—it would indicate the presence of anti-Semitic views in the audience, as well as raise the possibility that, by enthusiastically joining in, they might contribute to strengthening these prejudicial feelings. But is it wrong to laugh at Borat’s anti-Semitism, knowing that he is a character of Baron Cohen’s creation? Is mere awareness of the joke enough to find this song funny and enjoyable? It seems plausible that such enjoyment could help make the expression of anti-Semitic language more socially acceptable, despite Baron Cohen’s intentions.

For the audience watching on television, there is another layer. Someone laughing at home is likely to be “in on the joke,” and they are likely to be laughing not at the song but at the response of the live audience to the song. That is, the audience member laughing at home might be laughing at the gullible anti-Semites on television, not with them. The person laughing at home is not reacting to the mismatch between music and lyrics or, really, to the song at all. They are reacting to the live audience’s reaction to the song.

I don’t think that these moral questions have easy answers. It seems at least that songs like Baron Cohen’s bring with them a real risk of increasing anti-Semitism if they were to find the wrong audience. But Baron Cohen may be right that there is also an opportunity for such songs to raise awareness about prejudice, which could be a good thing. The perhaps unsatisfying answer is that the morality of discordant songs, like their appeal in general, is highly context-dependent.