Jokes may be the purest form of writing and performance. There’s a setup… then a punchline. If it’s a funny idea and it’s executed well, a big laugh follows. If either of these conditions aren’t met… no laugh.

The comedian knows immediately if the joke, as told, works or not. If it doesn’t, it’s time to figure out what went wrong and try to fix it.

If any part of the joke is fumbled – the timing, a word, the order of the words, the pauses, etc. – it can cause it to bomb. It’s like watching a gymnast in the Olympics. They run, they flip a bunch of times, then they have to land standing – perfectly. Same idea with a championship diver knifing into the water… or a comic.

In songwriting we’re often building up to a climax. Not usually a punchline, but there is a payoff, such as The Chorus, the Refrain, the Title line. If the song doesn’t ‘pay off’ where it’s supposed to, if it stumbles right when it’s supposed to peak, it’s not fulfilling its potential.

The other day I heard the brilliant Ricky Gervais talking about comedy on Jerry Seinfeld’s show and he said something that really struck me – “The nearer to the punchline (the audience) has to think about something, the worse it is.”

I’ve often thought about something similar in songs, but never quite articulated it. When writing songs, or critiquing them, why was my reaction often, “I had to pause to think, and it threw me off”? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with lyrics that make you think, right?

It’s important to remember the difference between thought-provoking and confusing. Lyrics that make you think can be good, sometimes great – even though I believe lyrics function best when, along with the music, they make you ‘feel a thought’, as the genius lyricist Yip Harburg said. Perhaps later you think about the idea. At the moment, you’re too busy feeling it to think about it.

When you’re leading up to that Chorus (the punchline) the less the listener has to stop to figure out what’s going on, the better. If you’ve already done the work of setting them up, and you’ve done it well, you’ve got them where you want them. Don’t lose them.

At that point in the song, momentum is everything. When the momentum is building into the climax, if the listener has to ask themself a question, they’re distracted right before we’re about to give them the most important moment of the song, when we’re about to close the deal – when we’re at the punchline.

Like with a great joke, at its best the setup should be clear enough that we can follow through its last few steps without thinking. We just get it.

“The nearer to the punchline you have to think about something, the worse it is.” – Ricky Gervais

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