By The Landlord
“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.” – Dr. Seuss
“Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.” – Joseph Epstein
“Work is much more fun than fun.” – Noel Coward
“I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun.” – Thomas A. Edison
“It's kind of fun to do the impossible.” – Walt Disney
“It's as much fun to scare as to be scared.” – Vincent Price
“It's all fun and games 'till someone loses an eye, then it's just fun you can't see.” – James Hetfield
“Fun is like life insurance; the older you get, the more it costs.” – Kin Hubbard
“We live in God's amusement park.” – Dean Koontz
Controller Mond: “Everyone belongs to everyone else.”
John The Savage: “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Hello. Here we are again. So what is it, this thing we call ‘fun’? Leisure? Pleasure? Amusement? Any activity that is free of the association of work or money, and something you want to do for nothing? Or something that is work for others but one you’re happy to pay for? Probably all of these, and sometimes even work itself can be fun, when ideally it also ceases to be work. Or perhaps fun is just just something simple, accessibly and free, like a walk in the woods. Or maybe even this.
And what happens when we have it? Is it best simply to not think about it? Is fun a process of relaxation, escapism, and release? Perhaps it is a form self-expression through the engagement of all our physical and mental sensations, in other words, doing something that makes us feel alive? Like a goat on a skateboard or dolphin leaping out of water?
Leaps of imagination
But feeling alive is a very broad church indeed. For some it might mean jumping off an aeroplane dressed as a chicken, or anything else for that rush of adrenalin, for others tackling the toughest, most cryptic crossword or mastermind quiz. Whatever ups your serotonin stimulation. For others it might be throwing M&Ms into the air to catch them in your mouth. Simpler pleasures for simpler people. Whether it’s taking drugs, skiing black runs, or baking Chelsea buns, knitting jumpers, noodling on an instrument, watching the cricket with a glass of cold beer, saying cheers to friends, taking your morning coffee, reading, throwing sticks for your dog then watching him shit, rolling around and enjoy smells, and the sunshine. Fun doesn't have to involve other people but it often does.
Playing in a band is some of the best fun you can have with other people, that is, when not shouting at each other for fucking it up on the 14th take. For some fun can be acts of wonderful kindness, for others extraordinary random cruelty, from shooting animals or people, getting sadistic kicks like those of Caligula or Genghis Khan or the fictional Joffrey Lannister, or the modern financial sadists, who like vultures, pick out the bones and profit from from economic collapse and taking enjoyment out of untold suffering – the disaster capitalists. They are having their kind of fun.
Fun comes in so many forms and is so subjective it would perhaps be absurd, and utterly pointless to just think of any fun activity and name a song about it - whether that be running, surfing, sailing, reading, riding, playing, flirting, sleeping, waking, eating, or whatever fulfils your fun appetite. whether that be fun you choose or fun that's enforced.
So perhaps a starting point, and likely even a requirement, is that the songs would need to mention the word fun, unabashed or ironically, or indeed any other synonyms, from getting your kicks to seeking your pleasure or leisure, frolic or merrymaking, carousing or joy.
Getting things rolling
Funfairs might be a good place to go, at least as far as this topic is concerned, and are fair game, but a funfair or a game isn't always fun, as fun to some is not at all for others. Here’s the late great darkly comic Bill Hicks on the subject:
“The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: ‘Is this real, or is this just a ride?’ And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, ‘Hey, don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.’ And we kill those people.
And different style of standup comment comes from Emo Philips, going more to the point:
“I got a job at an amusement park. I like to make the rides more terrifying by throwing a couple of screws onto the seats.”
Like humour, fun is something we shouldn’t over-analyse - it should just happen, but over the years I’ve gradually found that fun stuff often replicates what we are originally hardwired for – some kind of hunter-gathering in the daytime, so that means exploring and exercising, ideally for metaphorical fruits and nuts, rather than killing animals, and somehow combining a mixture of blissful solitude and group gathering in the right amount, in what is the modern equivalent of the savannah or mountain cave, to tell and share stories around a fire. So that’ll be down the pub, or round the telly.
In my imagined Utopia of ultimate fun, I picture myself also enjoying certain levels of fear and constant learning and self-improvement, a place where anyone can push ourselves to satisfactory but surprising limits.
Fear and fun often go hand in hand. Perhaps that means scaling dramatic, verdantly huge trees to pluck exotic fruits, or breathtaking mountains and clifftops to discover extraordinary views, being chased by tigers who can’t quite catch you, meeting and befriending various animals, riding water rapids and death-defying bike journeys, then relaxing on sunny meadows listening to bird song. Perhaps there might be vast libraries and venues to visit, giving constant discovery of music and film and books and art and live performances. Then at night that imagined fun world could also be transformed into a exciting cityscape of cool bars and more live music, filled with sexy, stylish, witty, sophisticated people who are all engaging, surprising and entertaining at every turn, always interested in what you have to say and make you bring out the best in yourself, an illuminated but also cosy fireside social whirl of wordplay, romance, sexual or sensual and intellectual encounter. Yes, all that would be fun.
When I was younger, music festivals were always a great disappointment. Perhaps because the sound quality was not as it is these days. Or I just didn’t ever have enough money. Or because at my first one our tent was robbed and some arsehole pissed right next to it in the middle of the night. But at a good one, where you find a good place to camp, the combination of walking around, hanging out with various friends, engaging with strangers and discovering new music all the time is a lot of fun, as long as the main headline act always turns up – decent weather. And it is a musical equivalent of happy hunter-gathering.
One way to talk about fun is to also say what it isn’t. On that very that note here’s one musical suggestion to get this particular festival rolling, one that questions the idea of fun at the music festival, Edwyn Collins’s supreme The Campaign For Real Rock:
You've just been to a all night party
Where I have to admit it takes pluck
To go out on the floor and proclaim, 'What a bore'
In a T-shirt that reads, 'Disco Sucks’ ….
Yes, yes, yes, it's the summer festival
The truly detestable summer festival …
For many people social media has become an addictive form of fun. But there’s also a great song, by Marry Waterson and Emily Barker – Little Hits of Dopamine - that questions that process, and was previously on the New Songs/ Song of the Day section.
Little hits of dopamine, printed words on a screen
Little hits of dopamine, post some photos on a screen
Hold the conversation, for one click communication
Instant gratification, one click communication
Use it as a pacifier, while your brain’s rewired
Reality off-kilter as seen through a filter
So whether it’s on an individual’s phone, or at a mass gathering, fun is a form of big business, whether it’s the funfair or the amusement park or mass TV watching, and there are always two sides to its big coin. At a Roman orgy there would always have been those not having so much fun, mostly the slaves I’d imagine. And as mentioned up top, even in the so-called Utopia of Aldous Huxley’s groundbreaking Brave New World, where everyone is apparently free to sleep with whomsoever they choose, there’s a hidden cost in the form of mood-controlling drugs and the workers behind the scenes whose freedom is sacrificed. Artificial, manufactured fun sometimes ends very badly.
Westworld, the original 1973 sci-fi Western thriller written and directed by Michael Crichton set in the then future year of 1983 is all about a theme park where visitors can get their kicks from visiting a wild west setting and enjoy safe gunfights with robot cowboys and sleep with robot prostitutes. Of course with Yul Brynner starring as the one of the robots, a smokin’ gun revolution happens here too.
Smokin’! Yul Brynner in 1973’s original Westworld
The original has since been turned into more recent long-running TV franchise. Also from around that time is 1975’s Rollerball, starring James Caan, in which players complete in brutal form of American football on wheels and have to take each other out on a skating arena. It’s an update on the gladiator’s arena scenario that backfires when the baying audience enjoy the fun too much, and one champion becomes too popular:
And many other forms of mass fun entertainment on this theme have followed, such as The Hunger Games, from a trilogy of books by Suzanne Collins, the first of which came out in 2008. It’s set in a dystopia called Panem, a North American country consisting of the wealthy Capitol city and 13 districts in varying states of poverty. Every year, children from the first 12 districts are selected via lottery to participate in a compulsory televised battle royale death match for mass entertainment fun. The key heroine is Katniss Everdeen – played by Jennifer Lawrence who has to beat the bad guys with her bow and arrow.
All of a quiver: Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games
While The Hunger Games is fun entertainment, it seems to be heavily influenced also by the original Battle Royale, a Japanese film from 2000 (バトル·ロワイアル, Batoru Rowaiaru) directed by Kinji Fukasaku, with a screenplay written by Kenta Fukasaku, based on the 1999 novel by Koushun Takami. Starring lots of teenagers and the incomparable tough guy teacher ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano, the junior high-school students are forced to fight to the death because, more bluntly, it is felt that the country, and its youth, has gone soft. School days eh? Aren’t they supposed to be the most fun times of your life?
So the same themes and plot often recur when it comes to mass amusement. How might it turn out if combined with another popular genre?
“Well, a zombie amusement park sounds like fun, but the health code violations alone are enough to turn your stomach,” suggest Jim C. Hines.
But if you think that’s a scary idea, imagine if this scenario ever came to pass:
“I think it would be so much fun to be in the White House.” – Kim Kardashian.
Shudder.
There’s a ton of guests queuing at the Bar today eager to have their say about what fun is. Here are just a few of many more to come:
“I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun,” says the sassy Katharine Hepburn
“Yes, but un is only possible if you have a mindset that allows it,” replies the handsome A-Ha singer Morten Harket.
Perhaps fun should always start in the morning then? “Well, the great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me,” says the writer Ray Bradbury.
Seems like a fun guy …
Helen Mirren’s here, and she has another way to find her leisure pleasure. “Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That's the fun of them. You're always learning.”
But what about acting? "The bad boy: always more fun,” says Ian McShane.
Film stars love to visit our bar. George Clooney talks about his new fun vocation. “Directing is really exciting. In the end, it's more fun to be the painter than the paint.”
“It's fun to be on the edge. I think you do your best work when you take chances, when you're not safe, when you're not in the middle of the road,” reckons Danny DeVito.
Right next to him is one of the greatest directors of all time: “Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.” Who else but the intense perfectionist, Stanley Kubrick?
And at the musicians table here is rarely seen trio. "As long as you're having fun, that's the key. The moment it becomes a grind, it's over,” says Barry Gibb.
But how do you make sure the fun continues? “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints - the sinners are much more fun,” says Billy Joel.
Fun in music is not just about the company. Here’s the late great pianist Chick Corea: “You don't have to be Picasso or Rembrandt to create something. The fun of it, the joy of creating, is way high above anything else to do with the art form.”
So on that creative note, it’s time to turn your fun instincts over to this week’s guest guru, the always fun, clever and very funny Olive Butler! Put your songs on this subject in comments below in time for last orders on Monday at 11pm British Summer Time, for playlists published next week.
Let the games begin!
New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...
Fancy a turn behind the pumps at The Song Bar? Care to choose a playlist from songs nominated and write something about it? Then feel free to contact The Song Bar here, or try the usual email address. Also please follow us social media: Song Bar Twitter, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube, and Song Bar Instagram. Please subscribe, follow and share.
Song Bar is non-profit and is simply about sharing great music. We don’t do clickbait or advertisements. Please make any donation to help keep the Bar running: