Interview with
Bob Kanefsky
By Rand Bellavia
Bob Kanefsky insists that he is not a musician. He
cannot play a musical instrument. He doesn't sing
(unless it's very late and you promise to turn off
your tape recorder). And yet he has won a Pegasus
Award, and his albums have sold in numbers that would
make most "real" musicians jealous. Just what's going
on here?
Bob Kanefsky is a parodist. Which is to say that he
writes new lyrics to pre-existing songs. But Kanef
(as he prefers to be called) takes the parody one step
further. Shunning the spotlight, Kanef's goal is to
get the creators of the original songs to perform his
parodies. Reducing it to pronouns: his albums are
full of those musicians doing his parodies of their
songs. Bob Kanefsky, Postmodern Filker.
If you seek more information on all things Kanefsky,
check out Songworm.com, where all of Kanef's parodies
and their sources are painstakingly cataloged.
(Also see Rand's "Interviewing A-Z")
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