Funny titles are extremely rare in “legit” classical music. After no small amount of brain-strain, I can think of only one:

“The March from The Love of Three Oranges.”

It’s hardly a knee-slapper but I can imagine someone, hearing that title for the first time, asking, “What? Excuse me? How was that again? Did they say three ORANGES? What sense does that make?”

Still, as jokes go, it’s pretty lame.

A few years ago, when Chris Miller, our church’s Minister of Music, thrust a clipboard and a ballpoint upon me and asked me to sign up to perform a piece of music at a summer worship service (the choir is “off” during the summer), I dutifully chose a date and indicated that I would perform a piano solo titled “Apology in C Flat Minor.”

There is no such work. I was joking. The title is only funny if you’re in on the joke: if anyone DID write a piece in the outrageously remote, difficult and all-but-theoretical key of C flat minor, then apologizing to the musician who might attempt to play it would be the least the composer could do to make amends. The third, sixth and seventh degrees of the scale would be double flats. Imagine what the key signature would look like with three double-flats indicated! Such a key would be the relative minor of E double flat major! The musical theoretician’s mind reels.

The not-exactly-classical composer Peter Schickele, a.k.a. PDQ Bach, has blessed us with many funny titles. Among the best are:

The 1712 Overture
Concerto for Piano vs. Orchestra
Fanfare for the Common Cold
Pervertimento for Bagpipe, Bicycle and Balloons
Toot Suite for Calliope Four Hands
The “Unbegun” Symphony

Schickele is a comic genius, a living national treasure. But these are not serious pieces of classical music, needless to say.

As for album titles, my vote for the funniest goes to Schickele’s forebear and acknowledged influence, the great Spike Jones. I refer to Spike’s LP:

“Dinner Music for People Who Aren’t Very Hungry”

Now THAT is funny.

Humorous titles come easier to authors. My vote for the funniest book title goes to Robert Benchley’s anthology of his own humorous writings:

“My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew”

Try to think it through. Your brain goes ping-pong.

Very nearly as funny are these titles of books by the incomparable P.G. Wodehouse:

“Leave it to Psmith”
“Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen”
“Love Among the Chickens”
“Eggs, Beans and Crumpets”

“Psmith.” Who knew that psilent letters were phunny? Maybe I should call myself “Wrick Psowash.”

Let us honor, too, Jerome K. Jerome’s classic:

“Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog)”

None of my books have funny titles and of my 400 musical compositions, only one has a title that might -- I say ‘might’ -- be funny:

“10 Versions of the Same Stupid Tune”

The tune itself is not especially funny. It means no harm. It’s just a little too straightforward, square, a tad too earnest and correct. It’s original, but not very. Like something from the filmscore of a “B Western.” If the title is funny, it’s because we composers are a prideful lot -- few would be so unprideful as to label one of their own creations “stupid.”

It is said that Beethoven detested the little tune he stole from Diabelli to develop into a stupendous set of keyboard variations. Never was so much done with so little. He didn’t derogate the tune by calling it ‘stupid’ in the title.

Well, I did, so there. But I don’t hate the tune. I’d say to it: “You’re likable enough.”

The ten versions are sweet in their willingness to make damfools of themselves for a laugh. Some might say the same is true of the composer.

To hear Chris Miller playing my Ten Versions of the Same Stupid Tune, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.