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> like finally understanding Alanis Morisette's "Ironic" Would you mind explaining the deeper meaning of Morissette's song?

by jkyle 11y ago

RKoutnik 11y ago
Not OP, but here goes: None of the examples in the song are actually ironic (i.e. taking an action with the intention of causing A which actually prevents A [or vise versa]). "Rain on your wedding day" isn't ironic, as "getting married" isn't attempting to prevent rain. However, writing a song that's supposed to be chock-full of ironic things where not a single one actually demonstrates irony IS ironic. So the song is meta-irony.
- charlieflowers 11y ago
  My mind is blown. Thanks.
- jkyle 11y ago
  Ah, situational irony. Nice. Though, I suppose it's ironic whether she intended it to be or not...maybe even more so if unintended.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >None of the examples in the song are actually ironic. (i.e. taking an action with the intention of causing A which actually prevents A [or vise versa]). Actually most (if not all) of the examples in the song are actually ironic. And the example given above is not the sole definition of irony (but could be an ironic situation). From the dictionary: (a) the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. (b) a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result. The "10000 spoons when you all you need is a knife" is obvious with the latter example. As for the "rain on your wedding day", it fairly obviously presupposes the expectation (of the "stereotypical" woman planning her wedding) that it would be some perfect sunny day. E.g. imagine a bride to be planning her reception, and after weeks full of summer sun, it pours like crazy in her wedding day ("a state of affairs (...) deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result") -- it's this feeling like the universe is mocking you, like you know, the weather changed on purpose. Of course a song has to tell those things elliptically, and people expect to see irony either in the form of (a -- most comments I've seen allude to that) or in a blatantly explicit (b).
  - yarper 11y ago
    It raining on your wedding day isn't ironic unless you're marrying an umbrella shop owner who has recently gone out of business. Being stuck without a spoon to stir your tea in a spoon factory would be ironic. It's like good advice you just can't take? No?
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >It raining on your wedding day isn't ironic unless you're marrying an umbrella shop owner who has recently gone out of business. Rain on one's wedding day isn't by itself ironic (in England for example it would be par for the course, as it almost always rains anyway). But it can be, under certain expectations (e.g. an expectation and preparations for a ceremony with nice weather, sudden rain ESPECIALLY on that day, when it was all well and sunny for weeks before, etc).
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > None of the examples in the song are actually ironic (i.e. taking an action with the intention of causing A which actually prevents A [or vise versa]). There are several definitions of irony, and as far as I can tell, that's not any of them. The threefold division into verbal, situational, and dramatic irony presented in Wikipedia [0] seems reasonably typical. The song is overtly about situational irony, and the examples are all -- as would be expected -- situational irony (though in a few of the cases this is only apparent when you consider normal, but unstated, thought processes or planning that is likely to have occurred by the people in the events described; when describing a situation in half-dozen words, there is quite a lot of implicit context), and the longest example also features verbal irony in interior monologue of the subject of the example. (And the delivery of the last stanza strongly suggest that the last two lines are, themselves, verbal irony.) The usual complaints about the song not being ironic seem to result from restricting the definition of "irony" to dramatic irony, which the song doesn't feature (except perhaps in the longest example, where given the context of the situational irony of the previous examples and the initial setup, the eventual outcome is clear to the listener from the start.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
drblast 11y ago
It's a hit song called "Ironic" that's devoid of irony in its lyrics. You'd expect the lyrics to be ironic. Alanis Morissette is either not that smart, or a complete and utter genius.
danso 11y ago
It's ironic that her song is named "Ironic" and yet every purported example of irony falls short of being actual irony. And no I'm not ignoring Occam's razor here...Morissette is a talented songwriter, which likely means she is also a decent student of literary technique...and even if she weren't, what is the statistical probability that _all_ of the dozen or so "ironic" situations that she chose to enumerate in "Ironic" could fall short of irony in exactly the kind of way that annoys the shit out of everyone who knows the actual definition of irony? (and no, I was not smart or cool enough to understand this at the time of the song's popularity, or even the decade afterward...I'm pretty sure I read this insight off of Reddit or a blog's comment section, which is probably itself an ironic thing)
jerf 11y ago
As a descriptive, not prescriptive, grammarian, the deeper meaning that Morissette's song accidentally has is that there were at least three or four distinct extant definitions of "irony", many people were very sure their definition was universal, and none of those people were right. It's sort of shocking this five-letter word turned out to have several simultaneous different non-overlapping meanings, with so many people not even realizing the differences in the way other people were using the word. There's probably a PhD thesis in there somewhere. No joke, irony, or sarcasm.

> like finally understanding Alanis Morisette's "Ironic" Would you mind explaining the deeper meaning of Morissette's song?

by jkyle 11y ago

> like finally understanding Alanis Morisette's "Ironic" Would you mind explaining the deeper meaning of Morissette's song?

RKoutnik 11y ago

Not OP, but here goes: None of the examples in the song are actually ironic (i.e. taking an action with the intention of causing A which actually prevents A [or vise versa]). "Rain on your wedding day" isn't ironic, as "getting married" isn't attempting to prevent rain. However, writing a song that's supposed to be chock-full of ironic things where not a single one actually demonstrates irony IS ironic. So the song is meta-irony.

charlieflowers 11y ago
My mind is blown. Thanks.
jkyle 11y ago
Ah, situational irony. Nice. Though, I suppose it's ironic whether she intended it to be or not...maybe even more so if unintended.
coldtea 11y ago
>None of the examples in the song are actually ironic. (i.e. taking an action with the intention of causing A which actually prevents A [or vise versa]). Actually most (if not all) of the examples in the song are actually ironic. And the example given above is not the sole definition of irony (but could be an ironic situation). From the dictionary: (a) the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. (b) a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result. The "10000 spoons when you all you need is a knife" is obvious with the latter example. As for the "rain on your wedding day", it fairly obviously presupposes the expectation (of the "stereotypical" woman planning her wedding) that it would be some perfect sunny day. E.g. imagine a bride to be planning her reception, and after weeks full of summer sun, it pours like crazy in her wedding day ("a state of affairs (...) deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result") -- it's this feeling like the universe is mocking you, like you know, the weather changed on purpose. Of course a song has to tell those things elliptically, and people expect to see irony either in the form of (a -- most comments I've seen allude to that) or in a blatantly explicit (b).
- yarper 11y ago
  It raining on your wedding day isn't ironic unless you're marrying an umbrella shop owner who has recently gone out of business. Being stuck without a spoon to stir your tea in a spoon factory would be ironic. It's like good advice you just can't take? No?
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >It raining on your wedding day isn't ironic unless you're marrying an umbrella shop owner who has recently gone out of business. Rain on one's wedding day isn't by itself ironic (in England for example it would be par for the course, as it almost always rains anyway). But it can be, under certain expectations (e.g. an expectation and preparations for a ceremony with nice weather, sudden rain ESPECIALLY on that day, when it was all well and sunny for weeks before, etc).
dragonwriter 11y ago
> None of the examples in the song are actually ironic (i.e. taking an action with the intention of causing A which actually prevents A [or vise versa]). There are several definitions of irony, and as far as I can tell, that's not any of them. The threefold division into verbal, situational, and dramatic irony presented in Wikipedia [0] seems reasonably typical. The song is overtly about situational irony, and the examples are all -- as would be expected -- situational irony (though in a few of the cases this is only apparent when you consider normal, but unstated, thought processes or planning that is likely to have occurred by the people in the events described; when describing a situation in half-dozen words, there is quite a lot of implicit context), and the longest example also features verbal irony in interior monologue of the subject of the example. (And the delivery of the last stanza strongly suggest that the last two lines are, themselves, verbal irony.) The usual complaints about the song not being ironic seem to result from restricting the definition of "irony" to dramatic irony, which the song doesn't feature (except perhaps in the longest example, where given the context of the situational irony of the previous examples and the initial setup, the eventual outcome is clear to the listener from the start.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

drblast 11y ago

It's a hit song called "Ironic" that's devoid of irony in its lyrics. You'd expect the lyrics to be ironic. Alanis Morissette is either not that smart, or a complete and utter genius.

danso 11y ago

It's ironic that her song is named "Ironic" and yet every purported example of irony falls short of being actual irony. And no I'm not ignoring Occam's razor here...Morissette is a talented songwriter, which likely means she is also a decent student of literary technique...and even if she weren't, what is the statistical probability that _all_ of the dozen or so "ironic" situations that she chose to enumerate in "Ironic" could fall short of irony in exactly the kind of way that annoys the shit out of everyone who knows the actual definition of irony? (and no, I was not smart or cool enough to understand this at the time of the song's popularity, or even the decade afterward...I'm pretty sure I read this insight off of Reddit or a blog's comment section, which is probably itself an ironic thing)

jerf 11y ago

As a descriptive, not prescriptive, grammarian, the deeper meaning that Morissette's song accidentally has is that there were at least three or four distinct extant definitions of "irony", many people were very sure their definition was universal, and none of those people were right. It's sort of shocking this five-letter word turned out to have several simultaneous different non-overlapping meanings, with so many people not even realizing the differences in the way other people were using the word. There's probably a PhD thesis in there somewhere. No joke, irony, or sarcasm.