Talk:Ironic (song)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Incorrect Statement

The following statement is found in this article: It is one of only two songs by Morissette to crack the top-ten on that chart, the other being "You Learn", backed with a live version of "You Oughta Know", which reached number six.

If it is correct that "Ironic", "You Learn", and "You Oughta Know" all made the top-ten, then it should not say "one of only two songs", but rather "one of only three songs" or perhaps (as might have been intended) "one with only two other songs". The logic of the statement is incorrect. Not to mention, it is a tad bit of a run-on sentence and would sound better if it were two sentences. 24.49.35.99 (talk) 21:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

perhaps?

Why does no one think that "a black fly in your chardonnay" is ironic. Chardonnay is typically refered to as a white wine. McHonza 18:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Um, I don't think that fact alone increases the irony. If instead through some strange twist of fate the circumstance was such that you had a glass of chardonnay which was black in colour (maybe a weird cocktail with Kahlúa), and an albino fly landed in it, then that would be ironic. 202.12.144.21 06:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Neither of those are truly ironic. I'll let the master, George Carlin, explain:

"Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father’s it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is 'a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result.' For instance:

If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, he is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony."

Irony has to have that "in mockery of" element. Coincidence and/or unexpectedness aren't enough to make something ironic. There must also be that feeling that god (or the universe, whatever) is intentionally screwing with your head. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.128.11 (talk) 11:05, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Stubbing of "linguistic controversy" section

Well, this development (user:Dtcdthingy's stubbing of the section on linguistic controversy) is, indeed . . . um, well, you-know-what, since this aspect of the song is what led to the creation of the article in the first place. I agree that this section had become unwieldy, but I don't think it's particularly fair to delete a big section wholesale and then add a section-stub tag asking people to expand it. I will see what might be salvaged from the prior version. Jgm 13:36, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

There is certainly a lot of valuable information in that section and simply removing it is not the right way to go about a change. There are some parts that require a rewrite, I agree. violet/riga (t) 14:49, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

what's so controversial?

"A black fly in your chardonnay" may not be ironic to people who drink chardonnay all the time; but if someone only drinks it to celebrate special occacions they certainly don't expect it to be tarnished with flowers. Similarly, the rain on your wedding day can certainly be contrary to your expectations if you have a beautiful summer wedding planned. The most striking example is the old man winning the lottery and dying the next day; it's folly/vanity to play the lottery if you're going to die, anyway, or to play the lottery all your life knowing that your chances are a slim as they are. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sunnan (talk • contribs) 07:03, 28 January 2006.

Irony is not merely unexpected misfortune, or a bad situation becoming worse, it's about reversal. e.g., the thrill of winning the lottery causing a fatal heart attack, not merely dying for unrelated causes. -- Jibal 23:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see the irony of a black fly in your chardonnay regardless of whether you drink it often or on special occassions. Same thing with a rainy day on your wedding. You can't plan good weather. You hope it doesn't rain on your wedding day, but you simply can't expect it not to rain. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Azn Clayjar (talk • contribs) 05:16, 6 May 2006.

The lottery one is perhaps slightly ironic - winning the lottery one day, and then coincidently losing the cosmic lottery the next day and meeting your maker might be considered so. However I believe this is reading far more into the song than actually was intended.--Breadandcheese 15:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The whole 'cosmic irony' thing is nonsense and quite simply incorrect usage. 'A traffic jam when you're already late' is not in the least ironic, merely unfortunate. However, a traffic jam when you're already late to attend a Mayor's ball in celebration of the effective tackling of inner-city traffic problems would be. It's not about just being unexpected - perhaps incorrect using by the colonials on the west side of the Atlantic may have earned them a dictionary definition in their favour, but anyone who can grasp irony knows that these events clearly aren't ironic in any way.

Something tempts me to disagree on the traffic jam. I think if you view "being late" as a true-false state, with whether you are late five minutes or five hours bearing no differing importance, the situation can be seen as somewhat ironic. Granted, I suppose it still lacks sufficient description to make the irony readily apparent to the audience; but a traffic jam is a frustrating affair, and if asked why one would likely point out that the traffic jam causes to him/her/it to be late, however once you are already late, a traffic jam should not according to that data (and that data alone) frustrate you nearly as much, a thing which it presumably does: hence the irony. Still, I do not deny that one has to conduct considerable analysis (taking into account that this is a song that is meant to be understood, presumably, in a few moments) and do it with a degree of bias. That, and I do have a habit of rating art on how easy it is for the audience to appreciate and/or understand it (Do you need to understand art to enjoy it? Maybe when you enjoy it, you understand it, only at a level useful only to you and not in the sense the rest of us would think? But then again, hey, I'm far enough off the topic already).

Anyway, to sum it up, the "inspirations" for the song certainly do seem to have been ironic, the issue being largely miscommunication and not lack of understanding of the concept.Ar-Pharazôn 23:09, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This bit is quite enlightening:

"Morissette discussed "Ironic" and recounted an incident where "a woman came up to me in a bookstore bathroom and asked 'Is the ironic thing about "Ironic" that it's not actually filled with ironies?' I nodded and smiled.""

Perhaps she nodded and smiled because finally someone had given her a get-out clause.

In a sense, the subtext (in Britain) of the Irish comedian Ed Byrne mocking Morissette's song was that here was another American (Canadian-American) showing a lack of understanding of the concept of irony.

Also: is it just me, or does the sentence "This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject." seem rather odd?

After all, the link I clicked at the top of the page said: "discussion".

Enlighten me (although if someone replies to this, ironically, we're breaking the rules again).

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.91.187 (talk • contribs) 18:10, 5 December 2006

Neutrality of linguistics section

The current text seems to be advancing the novel POV that the events described in the song are actually ironic:

The situations Morissette describes in the song are generally examples of cosmic irony, events that, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, appear "as if in mockery of the fitness or rightness of things," such as "a death row pardon/two minutes too late." A few examples of irony from the song, however, appear to be merely incongruous (not even improbable or coincidental), such as "a black fly/in your Chardonnay."

But I don't think that's very accurate at all. The events in the song are things that suck, but not that are particuarly ironic. For example - "rain on your wedding day" - that can be annoying and upsetting, but there's nothing ironic about it. If you lived in Seattle and had your wedding in Arizona and it ended up raining there while it was sunny back in Seattle, then that would be ironic. For something to be ironic, it has to go against expectations - not just be something that's unfortunate. Things like not taking good advice or being able to get something for free after you paid for it are the latter but not the former. Generic69 07:02, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the emphasis is out. One or two are arguably cosmic irony (which is one of the lesser forms anyway), most are just "shit happens". - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] 13:20, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I just took out a big section of dictionary definition which is off-topic, as well as an analysis of what Morrisett's quote "demonstrates", which is at best original research. I think what's left is actually a pretty decent summary of the "controversy"; in any event I don't think neutrality is the problem here, so I've taken that tag off. Jgm 18:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

At this moment: looks fine. Some think the use of the word "Ironic" to refer to the situations Morrisette Morisette Morissette describes is unacceptable, some think it's acceptable, there are good reasons on each side, she has her own view—it's all there, crisp and concise. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

No one has offered any good reasons why it's acceptable, not even Morissette, who appears to concur that it's not. -- Jibal 23:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If you had 10000 spoons when all you needed was a knife, that would not be irony. If you rejected the use of all 10000 spoons, disposed of them and went to great efforts to procure a knife, then found out once you got the knife that a spoon would have done, that would be irony. 192.18.1.36 (talk) 17:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Rain on your wedding day would be ironic if you were a weatherman. Other than that, it wouldn't be ironic. ----

Language section note

Whoever added the phrase "The song's usage of the word ironic attracted attention from people concerned with the precise use of the English language." gets a cookie. I just spent about 5 minutes cracking up when I realized that this was the most polite way of putting 'grammar nazi' into an article ive ever seen. Despite me being in the it's not irony camp, someone just earned themselves a beer. -AKMask 18:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Wesley Willis parody video?

If I recall correctly, wasn't the parody music video refered to in the article a Wesley Willis number? Christian Campbell 07:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

End of music video

The article says that at the end of the music video, the car stalls. I was actually under the impression that it ran out of gas - thus providing the "irony" that the car ran out of gas soon after she filled up the gas tank. --Jtalledo (talk) 03:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Not exactly. In the beginning of the video, the car is parked nowhere near a gas pump. Note the cup of coffee (or hot beverage) in her hand. It's implied that she was there to buy something, but not gas. The "irony" is that she ran out of gas shortly after leaving a gas station. 129.25.24.253 (talk) 16:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Weird Al parody

I remember watching Al Music in '96 as a teenager obsessed with modern music and he definitely parodied the Ironic video then, not in 2003. This is easily supported by the fact that in the parody, he has his signature glasses and moustache style and not the later clean shaven/contacts look he adopted in '99. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moe45673 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

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Explanation of the irony problem

Surprisingly bad explanation of how the song is not ironic, since it only includes a definition of "verbal irony." I agree that most of the lyrics are not ironic, but this explanation is terrible. I can't believe this article has been cited as exemplary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.69.204.131 (talk) 15:14, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

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