| abstract | - When a song having lyrics which are intended to be ironic is (ironically) used unironically in the soundtrack of a show, demonstrating either ignorance or willful misuse by the producers. Commercials are major offenders. The worst examples of that so far happened when "Walkin' on the Sun" became a jingle for Mercury, and General Mills' rewrite of Melanie's "Look What They Done to My Song, Ma" to "Look What They Done to My Oatmeal". A similar effect is when a song with an upbeat melody will be used as background music in upbeat scenes despite having very dark lyrics. This sort is also Soundtrack Dissonance of the other kind. Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising", and as a parody, Eric Idle (of Monty Python)'s "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life" are examples. Why does this happen? In many cases, the Dissonance comes between the first verse and the second, or between the verses and the chorus. The problem is that the first verse and chorus are the parts most people remember about a song and the parts most producers use. Sometimes, they only know and use the chorus. In many examples (especially the commercials), the lyrics that cause the dissonance will be excised, leaving only the beat/melody and the more famous individual lines. Once they've got you humming the melody, the song has done its work in associating itself with their product and/or service. The rest of the lyrics don't matter (until you head off to the kitchen). And as for the songwriters who might object to the song being misused like this? Even assuming they still own the rights to the song as opposed to having signed it over to some record industry exec who couldn't care less, they don't have a say in the matter. It's actually the law in the U.S. that if a company wants to buy the rights to use a recording, and are willing to fork over the standard royalty rate for it, the rightsholder has to let them have it. This trope is named for the Alanis Morissette song "Ironic", see our article on her for more on that. Compare Misaimed Marketing and Repurposed Pop Song. Related to Analogy Backfire. This trope is about music only and should not be potholed as an equivalent to Take That. There is a page about irony itself - what it actually means, and what the different types are - and it's called (ironically) "Irony". Examples of Isn't It Ironic? include:
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