Hey y'all, Sam Sanders here.

Want to tell you about the only NPR show where you can hear about the latest White House

drama and the return of TRL to MTV.

Show was called It's Been a Minute.

Every Friday we catch up on the week of news and culture, everything.

And every Tuesday I sit down for some long interviews with authors, filmmakers, directors,

and more.

You can find It's Been a Minute on the NPR One app or wherever you get your podcast.

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed.

I'm Jesse Thorn.

If you think about it, humor is kind of a weird device to use in pop music.

I mean, it's kind of risky.

If you lean into heavy on a joke and your song becomes a novelty, nobody's going to take

you seriously.

And despite that, there's so many singers and bands who've managed to do that for decades.

Just like Randy Newman, The Roaches, Harry Nilsson, Sparks.

It's kind of about balance.

Behind all of those artists' best songs, there's humor.

There's also pathos.

Jonathan Colton's a guy who's written funny music pretty much his entire life.

Lately, I guess you can say he's been writing more serious, darker songs.

And as he's done that, he started looking back on his earlier work and it even surprised

...