Funny Works Better
Funny Works Better
The Doohickeys Address Real Problems with Jokes and Clever Song Writing
Speaking truth to power usually ends better for the speaker when the truth is funny. From court jesters to the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, poking fun at a problem — and those responsible for it — often does more to address injustice than a serious campaign against the issue.
Recently, LA-based country duo The Doohickeys went a bit viral, tweaking Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” in a tribute called “9 to 6.” This clever remake takes on the seeming futility of the modern American Dream. It hit such a chord that they recorded the full track and released it last week.
Haley Spence Brown and Jack Hackett are comedians, actors and the musicians behind The Doohickeys. They continue a long line of truth-telling country artists — but do so with a wink and a nod. Their latest single, “Rein It In Cowboy,” out today, is honky tonkin’ banger about a pretty bad night at the bar, explains Spence Brown.
“This sleazy dude grabbed my butt in a bar, and I froze. I went home that night and wrote the song — it’s everything I wanted to say but struggled to in the moment.”
The next day, she met up with Hackett, who showed her a riff he was developing and the words “just worked” with the melody.
“We locked it in pretty quickly,” she explained.
The video’s hilarious take on the situation pushes watchers to ask bigger questions — while laughing. Zombies-bros slowly attack Spence Brown with tired pickup lines emblazoned on their ringer t-shirts as she tries to rein in their asinine approach and often violent overtones.
The “I’m in Finance” and “Male Feminist” shirts had me laughing pretty hard. There are 15 other horrible pick-up lines on the shirts worn by the “brain-dead men” who are terrorizing women in bars across the land.
“We’re both in agreement that comedy is the best rhetorical device for critiquing, celebrating, and questioning the status quo,” said Spence Brown. “We’re not always consciously writing about these topics—instead, we’re mostly operating from what we think is funny.”
“Sometimes, we tackle masculinity, misogyny, and corporate greed,” Hackett said. But there are other songs, such as “Too Ugly To Hitchhike,” about insecurities or “I Wish My Truck Was Bigger,” which is about trucks, and nothing else, he fervently stated, noting he would not entertain other questions about the innuendo about his small little truck.
“Most country artists present themselves as extremely confident and secure: ‘Everybody likes me and I party,’” said Spence Brown.
“We subvert that by writing from our point of view, which stems from insecurity and low self-esteem,” she joked, sort of. “To us, that’s more relatable.”
They went on to note that most country artists sing about who we want to be, but The Doohickeys sing about what they actually are today.
“This is not new to country music–the Opry used to include comedy songs and bits in their routine programming, and they often addressed the gray areas of life, like cheating, alcoholism, and the reason our kids are ugly,” she said.
Hackett remarked that they are both a bit nuts to take this path. The career path of truth-telling, comedic signers tends to be difficult, to say the least.
“Someone needs to put us out of our misery or pay us a ton of money —we’re open to either option,” he said. “But we’re big proponents of not taking life too seriously and just having fun with everything. Life’s short. Make the worst of it.”