Everyday life is so much different to each and every person. Whether it’s the amount of money the have, their job, their living conditions, their family, or their relationships, everyone experiences the good and the bad of everyday life. When someone is having the day of their life, someone else could be having the worst day possible, where as someone else could be wishing something good or bad would happen to them because they think their life is dull. In “Funny the Way It Is”, The Dave Matthews Band uses unfortunate irony in order to convey the irony of everyday life and how its just “funny the way it is”.
The focus of this song is on how a good day for someone is a bad day for someone else. Irony is used throughout including the opening lines to the song “Lying in the park on a beautiful day/Sunshine in the grass, and the children play/Siren’s passing, fire engine red/Someone’s house is burning down on a day like this” This situation, unfortunately, is very symbolic of things that happen everyday. One person is enjoying the sun, the other is escaping their burning house. Other ironic situations are presented later such as “Somebody’s going hungry and someone else is eating out”. This is an obvious ironic situation, which compares poverty to people like you and me. Other lines use irony, but others are subtler, using juxtaposition to create a oxymoron, “You hear laughter while the children play war”. The scene of children playing war is much different than the words children, play, and war out of context. The children could be playing the card game, or some sort of childish game in their backyard, but the words still create a oxymoronic phrase. Finally, there is a situation that is so everyday, that it really is “funny the way it is”. The line “somebody’s heart is broken, and it becomes your favorite song” is so ironic yet so common. Most songs involve some sort of love or relationship theme, and a good percentage are written out of heartbreak. Many of these songs are our favorites. It’s so ironic, but so common that we don’t even think about it. The Dave Matthews Band uses these ironic, but everyday situations to explain how we don’t think about things like this.
One mans pain is the next mans pleasure. Some people live with awful situations everyday, and some people don’t. This song explains how irony is such an everyday part of life and how it’s so common that most people don’t realize it. I think that’s why the title includes the word “funny”, because none of these situations happen to be funny. Another example is “On a soldier’s last breath his baby’s being born”. This is in no way funny, but the common aspect of it is unusual. Which in it self is an oxymoron, thw phrases “common and unusual” next to each other is an oxymoron. The Dave Matthews band makes us see how “funny” everyday life can be.
