When writing parody songs, do you...
...make sure most of the lines of each verse kind of rhyme with the original lines?
Or do you just make up any lines for the verses, no matter how different to the original lyrics, and ONLY parody a similar sounding hook in the chorus?
Personally, I think it's more pro if most of the words, NOT just the chorus have parody hooks.
You know.... like having the majority of the lines in the song sound similar.
It tends to depend to an extent on the song and what you are trying to do with it, but, yes the balance to strike is between recognition, satirical intent and humour.
I think it is possible in most cases to get away with some rhyme substitutions. For instances, in a parody of Food Glorious Food, for:
Food, glorious food!
Hot sausage and mustard!
While we're in the mood
Cold jelly and custard!
I had:
Food, gluttonous food!
Cheap offers and flog offs!
Sales gimmicks include:
Loyalty cards and BOGOFS
Which I thought worked (if you elide the extra syllable in the last line!) because the rhythm is so distinctive. (Mind you, I could be wrong, since neither Newsrevue or Treason used it...)
There is also scope for using partial rhyme and near rhyme, which songwriters do all the time anyway.
Quote: Griff @ August 5 2008, 10:15 AM BSTFor example I have a song in NewsRevue at the moment, "Robert Mugabe's Waiting" to the Bananarama tune, which also got into Treason last month.
As any fule kno the original lyrics are "Robert De Niro's waiting, talking Italian".
My first draft was "Robert Mugabe's waiting, with a machete". Which might just have worked OK if I'd rhymed something else with "machete" later on. But then I realised the rhymes and stresses of "with a machine gun" sounds much closer to the original "talking Italian". So that was what I used, even though "with a machete" would have been a funnier and more horrific image. (This also allowed me to rhyme "election" with "machine gun").
This must surely mark the death knell for his evil regime. 
Quote: Griff @ August 5 2008, 10:15 AM BST(This also allowed me to rhyme "election" with "machine gun").
Well done on that.
To be fair, musical comedy is always going to be the poor relation of, er, non-musical comedy. Whenever you see stand up acts come out with guitars etc, you feel the audience deflate.
I always assume the purpose of the parody song is to allow people to get to the bar. Can be fun to write though.
Quote: Griff @ August 5 2008, 10:38 AM BSTAgree there is no more depressing sight than a stand-up with a guitar.
Ah, Jasper Carrott was all right. And Bill Bailey.
Richard Digance can bugger off, though.
Oh dear you don't believe we're all impassioned?
I have no burgeoning desire to convince people George Bush can't wipe his own bum, and Nick Clegg is a potential rapist.
They just get cheap laughs.
But frankly I think that's what most politicans are aiming for any way.
Good advice on rgyming structure thanks.
Though I am tired of looking like JDeacon counting sylables on my fingers.
Quote: Graham Bandage @ August 5 2008, 10:41 AM BSTRichard Digance can bugger off, though.
He was playing a festival I went to the weekend before last. Dire. But Keith Donnelly was compering and did a lot filling in between acts, and he did okay with the comedy songs.
Quote: Timbo @ August 5 2008, 10:47 AM BSTHe was playing a festival I went to the weekend before last. Dire.
Jim Davidson with a guitar. Lethal combination.
Maybe if you made it
Guitar, Jim Davidson
Then added "shoved violently up"
and finished with
"set fire to"
could be quite acceptable.
I, of course, abhor violence, Mr Davidson. My colleague, sootyj, however, is not so fastidious.
Thanks for the input. 
Yeah, I try to get as close as I can to the rhymes as I can, but sometimes, you have to substitute, just to get a gag in.
Mark, the director from Treason Show emailed me in response to the parody song I sent him, saying that the chorus was excellent, but the verses were a little gag light.
So, I redid it, changing some bits in the verse.
The song is a duet between Max Moseley and Robert Murat (the guy who was accused, but cleared of Maddy MacCann's disappearance) and parodies their two compo payouts from the newspapers.
It's "Won't Let The Sun Go Slander Me" to the tune of Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me." (by George Michael and Elton John)
MAX MOSELEY SINGS:
They can't write no more of their stories
All my pictures, smeared about my private life
The Guardian, The Times stand still before me
In a court of law, newspapers banged to rights
BOTH:
(chorus)
Won't let The Sun go slander me
I was accused myself, but it was always someone else you see
The judge allowed the payout of my life, and now I'm free
You're losing everything, won't let The Sun go slander me
ROBERT MURAT SINGS:
It's too late to save yourselves a fortune
You took a chance, it changed my way of life
'Cause you misled your readers about Portugal
Should've locked the door, I didn't snatch her that night
BOTH:
(chorus)
Won't let The Sun go slander me
I was accused myself, but it was always someone else you see
The judge allowed the payout of my life, and now I'm free
You're losing everything, won't let The Sun go slander me
While the original lyrics are:
I can't light no more of your darkness
All my pictures seem to fade to black and white
I'm growing tired and time stands still before me
Frozen here on the ladder of my life
Too late to save myself from falling
I took a chance and changed your way of life
But you misread my meaning when I met you
Closed the door and left me blinded by the light
Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see
I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me
As you can see, I TRIED to keep with the original rhyming bits, like "and time stands still before me" rhymed with my "The Times stand still before me" and "closed the door" with "court of law" etc.
But alas, to improve it, some bits had to be drastically changed.
is this the type of thing meant
#I left my tart in Sam's alfresco#
was....
[I left my heart in San Francisco]
Yeah, that's right....
...but the more cleverer songs are those where it's most of the lines, (verses and chorus) not just the hook line of the chorus that rhymes.
For example, in your parody, the rest of the lines of the chorus would have to be a joke too.