The Worst Song Of The '90s? A Line-By-Line Dissection Of Alanis Morissette's "Ironic"

It's a free ride when you've already paidIs this ironic? This actually is ironic as well

It's the good advice that you just didn't takeIs this ironic? If you were a person notorious for taking advice

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to flyHe packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbyeHe waited his whole damn life to take that flightAnd as the plane crashed down he thought, "Well isn't this nice..."Is this ironic? Yep

It's a black fly in your ChardonnayIs this ironic? - If you live in Alaska

It's a death row pardon two minutes too lateIs this ironic? Actually, yeah...it kind of is

It's like rain on your wedding dayIs this ironic? - If your wedding was in a desert

Hold on hold on....

Are we intentionally ignoring "Barbie Girl?!?!"

wow, she looks so beautiful in that picture.

The 90s was the best decade for music the world has ever known. To call a time desolate when at any given time I could turn on on the radio and hear nirvana, Alice in chains, pearl jam and sound garden in the same hour is clearly the mumblings of an idiot and someone who knows nothing about music. I feel bad for you reviewing music when you clearly have no idea.

To give her some credit, when she redid the song, the line "meeting the man of my dreams then meeting his beautiful husband" is ironic, so it took her some time but she got it

dramatic irony

in literature, a plot device in which the audience's or reader's knowledge of events or individuals surpasses that of the characters. The words and actions of the characters therefore take on a different meaning for the audience or reader than they have for the play's characters. This may happen when, for example, a character reacts in an inappropriate or foolish way or when a character lacks self-awareness and thus acts under false assumptions

Ben -  You made me laugh out loud.  Cackle, actually.  Multiple times.  I think I love you.  :)Angela

the fact that anyone read this entire absurd, incoherent, childish, and factually incorrect mess is ironic.

Oh hell no I know this shit ain't news! No song needs to be analyzed, especially this song, it's certainly not the worst and people like you infact no one especially you have the right to decide what is! The song makes perfect sense, it's a bunch of ironic situations ergo the song is called ironic, you don't need to know if the old man played his whole life, use your imagination, this is the dumbest article I ever read in my life! Does the new generation music make more sense to you? They don't explain anything except how hard they are, getiing drunk, having sex, club dancing and promoting bigtime designers that no one can afford except them for singing about dumb shit! Take this article and shove it up ya ass!

LOLOL fun read BUT... I LOVE one writes about the "WORST SONG of the 90's" when he really means "WORST (or LEAST LOGICAL) LYRICS of the 90's" ... . isn't it ironic? LOL

I was working in a coffee bar in Seattle in the 90's (is that ironic or just ubiquitous?) - my colleague always used to get frustrated when this song came on, and he'd scream, "Noooo!!! It's just unlucky!!"  As for some of these other comments, apparently people are suffering from an irony deficiency.

Very much enjoyed this article. The part Ifound most amusing was, I think, completely unintentional.  In this piece about the misuse of anexpression back in the nineties, the author incorrectly used a commonly misused expression from ourcurrent era.  “Begs the question”does not mean what Mr. Westhoff thinks it does.  THIS, my friends, IS ironic.

Whoever the tart was that wrote that piece of an article hopefully isn't actually paid for their opinions

Seppo's are culturally paranoid they don't get/do irony very well (old pom/mother country issues perhaps?)...it's ironic that the song content ain't...she's a canuck...she gets it...end of. 70s had bloat, disco, prog AND punk, reggae, 2 tone ska. 80s was this sort of Dickens arrangement in extremis..."best & worst of times"...best underground (imho best ever!), worst commercial. 90s was bland...watered-down alternative making bucks...a losing bet, each way. The zeroes...pfft! for the most part! Po-mo irony is boring! Though the underground is defo stirring again. US bands I liked from each period (proffered so I can be written off/admired): Stooges...Killdozer...NWA...Shellac....Thee Oh Sees...

The title of this article mentions worst of a decade...the 90's to be exact.  Alanis's "Ironic" was hardly the worst of the decade, not by a long shot.  She's a pretty bright person who had the ability to craft huge hit/pop songs. Now the writer is clearly stating his opinion so you can't fault him for that.  We're all entitled.

The worst pop song of the 90's will go to Cher's "Believe" for single handedly ushering in the crap pop culture vocal processing of the 2000's called......you guessed it....Autotune.  We are talking decades here folks and there is no other artist of that decade, the 90's, that had the most cheesy and ridiculously un-creative impact on the next decade than this one song.  It shaped 2000's pop music for the worse... Someone tell me I'm wrong!

This article made me laugh -- mostly because I hate "Ironic" and can get behind this whole mocking analysis. HOWEVER, "Kurt Cobain and hip-hop's golden age aside" -- um, excuse me, why would you put aside two major musical movements just to denounce a decade? I mean, in this same article you redeemed the 70s based on the strength of two formerly unappreciated genres, prog rock and disco. And you're even less specific about what you think is good and bad about the 80s.  IF grunge and hip-hop were all the 90s had going for it, so be it but that isn't insignificant -- unless you think these were overhyped. And that's a different article. I'm more interested in how our current era will seem to us in a couple years? Unrelentingly marketed pop, probably -- pop-rock, pop-jazz, pop-gospel, pop-hip-hop. And a bunch of Brits with a penchant for Motown?

Oh yeah... and while I hate hate hate this song, I have to vote for that 4 Non-Blondes song as the worst of the decade.

sorry about the double post.

Chumbawamba, Tubthumping!

"But as our distance from the '90s grows, it becomes increasingly clear that it was a desolate musical time."

What a stupid comment.  Or said by someone that didn't listen to Electronic Music, which had its renaissance in the 90s.  1993-1994 produced some of the greatest Electronic Music ever made, to this day.

Besides - Creed made two albums in 1999.  Pick any song for Worst Of The 90s.

The lyrics may not be very good, but Alanis always had an ear for hooks, and the song is very catchy, and therefore successful beyond the lyrical content.

And The Prodigy, Weezer, Pavement, Fatboy Slim are all great. What are you TALKING about?

THIS must be given ALL STARTS!!!!

 Who wrote this article? Ironic is one of the best songs EVER. The lyrics are just awesome.  Probably Alanis is one of the best writers in music and Ironic is indeed a very well written yet genuine song. And indeed there is irony in it.

This isn't exactly an original criticism of the song, but I did laugh a few times.  However, if we want to apply college sophomore English major wit to quality of writing, shouldn't we take issue with the author's use of the adjective "tragic"?  Every English student goes through a phase where we roll our eyes and correct others that sad things don't necessarily qualify as tragedy.  I could start quoting Aristotle, but then I'd just be a jerk.

This author seems to think that there is only one definition of irony. One of the simplest definitions of irony is an outcome which is contrary to the expected or implied outcome. By that definition, every one of those examples is ironic because the lyric is implying a happy event, but the resulting event is not congruent with the expected result.

The author seems to think that sarcasm is the only legitimate form of irony. If the author took the 6 seconds to open a dictionary on this or any other occasion, he may have realized that words often have multiple definitions.

Who says song lyrics have to make sense? Art is art, not English class. Having said that, there are a lot of 15year old girls running around with no idea of what Ironic really means. Thanks Alanis!!!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

wow, what a bunch of bull

All of the lyrics are NOT ironic that is the Ironicpart!

All this nonsense about the song being ironic because it's not ironic? That doesn't fly, according to the New York Times: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes....

The article allows that the track may be headed in the vague direction of irony if Morissette composed it to be purposefully irony-free. If anyone from the peanut gallery has proof that this was her intention, please present it.  

Wow, this author is clearly not as smart as he thinks. When that song came out I was an 18 year old punk ass and even then I knew that the whole point to the song was that nothing in the song is actually ironic. Like the commenter above said, its like a meta-irony; the song itself is ironic. Bad article...

Hater.  Bet you were jammin to it back then tho..!!

How bout "Walk 500 Miles" by the Proclaimers for worst song not just of the '90's, but maybe of ALL TIME..!!

This is plagiarism. Ed Byrne said this years ago.

i can't express how happy i am to read this today.  i've been bitching about this song for years about how nothing's ironic in it.  hahaha awesm

Ben Westhoff is best off !

 This was funnier the first time. When Ed Byrne did it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

If the title of the song is "Ironic" and nothing in it is ironic, isnt that ironic?

PWNED thats SCIENCE

"Which begs the question: Why did he decide to go all?"

If you are going to trash someone else's usage of the English language, make sure your usage is in order.

"To beg the question" is to commit a logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise.  Perhaps you meant "Which encourages the question..." or "Which invites the question...".

Or perhaps you were being ironic?

This article is a shiny example why some people should not be allowed to write on the interwebs. Or anywhere else, for that matter. And that's not because I like the song, or the singer, which I do not. But this cribbling is neither funny, nor witty and shows a remarkable lack of, well, brains or any rudimentary ability to forumlate one adequate thought. Ah, well. 

The 90s were a "desolate musical time"?! Are you f--king kidding me?? Besides Nirvana, the 90s were amazing for punk rock in general. There was a resurgence of both ska and swing bands and there was an amazing, all-too-short period in the mid-90s where truly creative "alternative" rock music became the most popular kind of music there was. 

It was a beautiful time just prior to the rise of the boy bands and the generic pop music that came after. I'd say the 90s challenge the 60s for the artistic value and creativity of the artists of that time. Desolate?? Not f--king likely.

You have too much time on your hands...

Music isn't about making sense, or being grammatically correct.It's about how it makes you feel.

Worst song of the 90’s huh?

I see your Alanis Morissette's"Ironic" ad raise you Crash Test Dummies’ “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm”. 

Did this article really need to be spread over 4 pages?