Ironic-Part 1

Irony is the disparity between what you expect will happen and what does happen.

With that in mind, I would like to discuss the song "Ironic" by Alanis Morrisette.

The song comprises a series of vignettes describing situations, each ending in the question "Isn't it ironic?" The problem I have with this, is that none of the situations are actually ironic. While some can be argued as cosmic irony "as if in mockery of the fitness or rightness of things," ("a death row pardon two minutes too late") most of them are simply unfortunate, not even coincidental ("a black fly in your Chardonnay"). If you don't count the few instances of cosmic irony (which isn't true irony anyway), we are left with a song entitled "Ironic" that contains no irony. Which actually makes the song ironic, in and of itself. This means that Alanis is either a literary genious or making a sick joke that will forever bug me when I hear it on the radio. The real kicker is that even though it makes me so mad...I can't help but love the song.

Evidence:

• "It's like rain, on your wedding day"

This would only be ironic if say your fiance is a weatherman and he sets the date. Or say you live somewhere that rains all the time (like Seattle) and so you have the wedding in the desert and it rains there but not in Seattle.

• "Mr. play it safe was afraid to fly, he packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye, he waited his whole d*** life to take that flight and as the plane crashed down he thought 'well isn't this nice'"

This situation is actually the opposite of irony. He feared the plane would crash and then it did. It would have been ironic if say, he refused to fly and then died in a car crash. Or say he flew safely then died on the car ride from the airport. I dunno, something like that!

• "A no-smoking sign on your cigerette break"

A no-smoking sign at a cigerette factory...now that's irony.

• "It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife"

All I have to say to that is, who has that many spoons?

In conclusion:

When all is said and done, it doesn't really matter if the song is ironic or not. What it really comes down to is that I just spent a good chunk of my afternoon researching and blogging about irony and obsessing about that stupid song (that, like I said, I really enjoy in the first place!), so she wins no matter what. So I say...hats off to you, Ms. Alanis Morissette.