What is the difference between a parody and a mondegreen? According to dictionary.com, a parody is “a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing”, while a mondegreen is “a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been heard”.  In other words, a parody is intentional while a mondegreen generally is not. Mondegreens are often referred to as misheard lyrics. A parody can also be called a pun or satire.

Both parodies and mondegreens are common in music. Very often people mishear the lyrics to popular songs, such as “excuse me while I kiss this guy” instead of “kiss the sky”, or “secret Asian man” instead of “secret agent man”. Sometimes a mondegreen can be made up, or forced; if this is the case, then the mondegreen verges on a parody.

I’m sure everyone has heard a parody or two at one time or another. If you watch “The Simpsons” or “Saturday Night Live”, you’ve seen parody. Musical parody is quite common. “Weird” Al Yankovic is the king of musical parody. Al got his start by sending tapes of his parodies to the national radio show of Dr. Demento. Al garnered a small following from fans of the show. He also had a nationally-released single, “Another One Rides The Bus”. Al then signed with Scotti Bros. Records in 1982, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Interestingly, song parodies do not violate copyright laws. A parody falls under the fair use doctrine which allows limited use of copyrighted material without obtaining permission from the copyright holder. Artists who perform parodies do not need to get permission from the original artists, even though the parodies often use the original musical composition. However, artists such as Weird Al generally do ask for permission from the original artist before doing a parody. Asking for permission first helps Al maintain his relationships with a variety of artists. Most of the time, the artist is flattered the Al has chosen one of their songs to parody.

Here’s one of Al’s latest videos “Perform This Way”, a parody of Lady GaGa’s “Born This Way”.