1 | ->''"All hail to the thief, all hail to the thief..."'' |
2 | -->-- '''Music/{{Radiohead}},''' "2+2=5" |
3 | |
4 | In musical theater, especially period pieces, it is common to emphasize the setting by having characters raise their voices in a song of sarcastic praise offered to the most hated political leader or leading figures of their day. |
5 | |
6 | [[TropeNamer Named after]] the Music/{{Radiohead}} [[Music/HailToTheThief album]] of the same name. |
7 | |
8 | This can overlap with TheVillainSucksSong and IHateSong. Compare ProtestSong. A close relative of MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting. |
9 | ---- |
10 | !!Examples: |
11 | |
12 | * In an example from Website/TVTropes itself, GodSaveUsFromTheQueen is a play on the British national anthem. |
13 | * "We'd Like to Thank You, UsefulNotes/HerbertHoover" from ''Theatre/{{Annie}}''. |
14 | * "Merry Christmas [[UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher Maggie Thatcher]]" from ''Theatre/BillyElliot''. |
15 | * During the opening song "Tradition" from ''Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof'', a villager asks the rabbi if there is a blessing for the czar. "Of course! 'May God bless and keep the czar... far away from us!'" |
16 | * Music/JohnDenver's "The Ballad of Spiro Agnew" pays an 18-second tribute to the Vice President's accomplishments by starting out with "[[VicePresidentWho I'll sing you a song about Spiro Agnew and all the things he's done...]]" followed by silence, conveying the message that Agnew has accomplished very little. |
17 | * "Hosianna Rockefeller" from ''Happy End''. |
18 | * "Sing Hubbard" from ''Regina''. |
19 | * Disney's ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973'' has "The Phony King of England," about [[UsefulNotes/KingJohnOfEngland Prince John]]. |
20 | * TV example: "Shame, Shame, Shame (on you now [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Dubya]])" from ''Series/{{Treme}}''. |
21 | * Crossed with TheVillainSucksSong but "[[Anime/DragonBallZ Frieza]], [[AwesomeMusic/DragonBall Frieza]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42B-kOtn-D8 Frieza]]" ... |
22 | * "WesternAnimation/DerFuehrersFace," as popularised by Music/SpikeJones and WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, pays mocking respect to UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and ThoseWackyNazis. |
23 | --> Not to love Der Fuehrer is a great disgrace, |
24 | --> So ve heil! (''[[BlowingARaspberry raspberry]]'') heil! (''[[BlowingARaspberry raspberry]]'') |
25 | --> Right in Der Fuehrer's face. |
26 | * Speaking of Creator/{{Disney}}, there's a UsefulNotes/JosefStalin-related [[https://youtu.be/qvX8WLJ-fHo parody]] of Gaston's VillainSong from ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast''. It's clear that the singers are only singing Stalin's praises because he'll kill them if they don't, and they still get a jab or two in. The song also appears to be mocking Stalin's far-left fanboys on {{imageboards}} like Website/FourChan and 8chan, as evidenced by the proliferation of chan memes in the video. The same Website/{{YouTube}}r also released a song titled "[[https://youtu.be/UBwCbBrsrWs Albanian Nights]]" (based, of course, on ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'''s opening song "{{Arabian Nights|Days}}") mocking [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha Enver Hoxha]]'s harsh Stalinist regime in UsefulNotes/{{Albania}}. (Note that the memes in this video revolve around one of Hoxha's less brutal but still bizarrely paranoid policies, namely [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunkers_in_Albania constructing hundreds of thousands of bunkers all over Albania]] to prepare for potential military attacks.) |
27 | * Music/SelfInsert mockingly rejoices the oppression of the criminal justice system by seducing a female judge with their extensive criminal history in their 2021 single Necrophilia. |
28 | * During the lead-up to the 2016 [[UsefulNotes/AmericanPoliticalSystem presidential election]] in UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates, Website/CollegeHumor made a Creator/DonaldTrump-related [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9-5DJhBh6M parody]] of "[[TheVillainSucksSong You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch]]" from ''WesternAnimation/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'' |
29 | * "Haldeman, Erlichman, Mitchell and Dean" was a Vaudeville-style novelty song by a group called The CREEP (acronym for The Committe to Re-Elect the President) which came out in 1973, soon after the Watergate scandal broke. |
30 | -->''We're Haldeman, Erlichman, Mitchell and Dean,''\ |
31 | ''The way we were treated was really obscene''.\ |
32 | ''Who'd think that a bug worth hardly a shrug''\ |
33 | ''Would end up in getting us tossed in the jug?''\ |
34 | ''There's no power shortage where we were concerned''\ |
35 | ''And what little profit resulted we earned'',\ |
36 | ''Four lovelier fellow you never have seen''\ |
37 | ''Than Haldeman, Erlichman, Mitchell and Dean.'' |
38 | * Though the "ColonelBogeyMarch" was instrumental when it was originally composed during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, it found new life during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII as a distinctly crude TheVillainSucksSong about UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and ThoseWackyNazis. For propriety's sake, at the behest of the original composer's widow, the tune had to be whistled instead of sung during its iconic appearance in ''Film/TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'', making this song an example of both WithLyrics and ForgottenThemeTuneLyrics at once! |
39 | -->Hitler has only got one ball\ |
40 | Göring has two but very small\ |
41 | Himmler is rather sim'lar\ |
42 | But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all |
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