Turning the Anger Into Laughs

Album: Ed Haynes, Sings Ed Haynes, 1989

Best Track: "Wrecking Crew"

Lasting Memory: George Carlin died yesterday. That is not my most indelible memory of listening to Ed Haynes' debut album, but it is fitting that I'd be able to pay my respects to Mr. Carlin in a post about Haynes singing Haynes.

While Haynes is a pop folkie instead of a genre-defining stand-up comedian, he operates very much in the tradition of Carlin in looking for -- and usually finding -- the comedic side of ordinary and ordinarily angering events.

Carlin once asked, "What's so civil about war, anyway?" Haynes opens his album with the pretty hilarious antiwar ballad "I Want to Kill Everybody."

And if you enjoy punning sarcasm, Carlin presented you with the eternal conundrum, "Why do we drive on the parkway and parkway in the driveway?" Haynes presents 'Talking Cat Blues."

Third, where would Carlin have been if he hadn't become the master of turning sputtering rage into comedy gold. List the seven words and win a prize while also enjoying Haynes' "Wrecking Crew". The song "McFarland," which is about a town in which "the kids aren't living very long" because of soil pollution is an even better example, but I can't find it online anywhere.

Last, both Carlin and Haynes seem to have had mixed relationships with for-adults-only substances. I'm don't actually know if Haynes ever had problems with alcohol, but he sure sings a lot about beer, wine, and liquor on Sings. If he isn't somewhat fondly recalling "Drinking Father's Whiskey" while in high school, he is overcoming his temporary aversion to beer after having witnessed a homeless person go "Splash!" after drinking too much Mickey's during a street fair. No telling whether all of this happened before or after Haynes enjoyed "One Brief Liaison With the Lady of the Afternoon."

Carlin's problems with cocaine, wine, and Vicodin were never anything he tried to hide. R.I.P. Mr. Carlin. Thanks for the laughs and for inspiring folks like Ed Haynes.

Up Next: Jimi Hendrix, Smash Hits, 1969 (cassette re-release)

P.S. In hunting down song links for this post, I cane across an article in which Haynes said he has always admired and tried to emulate Tom Lehrer. While I have no choice but to take Haynes at his own word, I also think he is selling himself short. Nothing against Lehrer -- who pulled off the seemingly impossible task of singing the periodic table -- but that MIT/Harvard/UC-Santa Cruz mathematics professor just didn't have Haynes' edge. Which is not to say that he couldn't be politely caustic.