Remember when every pseudo-intellectual you knew was letting you know that there was nothing actually ironic in the song, “Ironic” by Alanis Morrisette? Pepperidge Farms remembers. And so do I. My amazing English teacher in 1997 even played it and pointed this out to us.
But how sure can we be about this nebulous word? I feel I need to make a defense for Alanis Morrisette’s oft-maligned definition of “ironic” in that eponymous song. It’s so cliché to call out that she’s got the meaning all wrong, but I think a little more explanation for each scenario would indeed make for some true irony. So let’s make it all ironic, line-by-line!
“An old man turned ninety-eight,
He won the lottery and died the next day.”
—This poor old guy swore for 98 years that the lottery was a silly scam for the desperate. He laughed at them. Then his daughter bought him a ticket for his birthday — and it turned out to be the winner! But when she arrived at his home, he had just passed. And his will gave his entire estate to the state lottery for charity.
“It’s a black fly in your chardonnay,”
—A woman terrified of bugs orders white wine instead of her usual soda water to align with her peers at a business get-together. The sweetness of the chardonnay attracts a fly into it. The group is an insect preservation organization, so she’s forced to drink wine she doesn’t like with a bug in it.
“It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late,”
—This innocent man always set his watch two minutes ahead to be punctual, and he could have appealed before the execution if he had known that the murder he was convicted for actually occurred two minutes before he could have arrived at the scene.
“And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think?”
—It could be, you Dave Coulier lover!
“It’s like rain on your wedding day,”
—A woman lives somewhere like Oregon, where it perpetually rains — so she decided to have her wedding in Arizona, where it hasn’t rained in 70 days. Then, on the day of the wedding, it suddenly rains there, yet it’s sunny skies in Oregon.
“It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid,”
—This person skipped on paying cabs and ran off over and over again — then one day, she actually paid her driver, only to learn that someone else in the taxi paid the driver in advance for their trip, and the cabbie had dropped her off on the wrong street.
“It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take,”
—A woman always took the advice of her good friend, but it always steered her wrong. She finally ignored it, and went to work at the World Trade Center anyway on the morning of 9/11.
“And who would’ve thought… it figures…”
—Yes, it does, Alanis! It absolutely figures! It’s definitely figuring hardcore! Like Dave Coulier did! Did I misspell something?
“Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly,
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye,
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight,
And as the plane crashed down he thought, ‘Well isn’t this nice…'”
—Damn, this is an example that actually might be ironic! Plane crashes are super rare, and this aerophobe avoided flying for fear of a tragedy that almost never happens — but the one time he finally chose was a mortal catastrophe.
*chorus again*
“Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right,
And life has a funny way of helping you out when you think everything’s gone wrong and everything blows up in your face,”
—Not much mentioned in this song about that second part, Ally Mor, is there?
“A traffic jam when you’re already late,”
—Someone who has zero traffic in their commute still leaves early every day to be punctual. The one day they’re running a bit behind happens to be immediately after a massive car accident clogs the highway for an hour.
“A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break,”
—This non-smoker for ten years finally gets stressed enough at work to buy a pack of cigs. When he arrives at work, he finds out that it’s the first day of a no-smoking policy outside.
“It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife,”
—After eating soup every day at the cafeteria and always struggling to find a clean spoon, a man orders steak one day, only to find there are no knives, but an abundance of spoons.
“It’s meeting the man of my dreams…
And then meeting his beautiful wife,”
—This woman has been married and cheating on her husband with one-night stands for years because she doesn’t love him. She is introduced to a man she truly feels could be the one, but sadly learns that he is also married, and he also just used her for a one-night stand.
“And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think? A little too ironic… and, yeah, I really do think…”
—Who the hell ever says, “Yeah, I really do think”? I know Uncle Joey doesn’t.
*hey, it’s the chorus for a third time*
“Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you,
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out…
Helping you out”
—That’s true, Alanis. Life does have a funny way. And maybe there’s even some irony in this validation of your dated song. I still loved you on You Can’t Do That on Television when I was growing up.
My only intent here was to help people understand what irony actually is. And I hope that my “lottery ticket as a gift” reference makes everyone YouTube the David Cross bit about buying someone a lottery ticket as a gift. David Cross is almost as clever as I am. Which is ironic, because I met him and told him how clever he was. Is that irony? Hm. No, that’s just conceit.