Stephen Lynch
3 Balloons
What Are Records?
Stephen Lynch has been on the comedy circuit with his acoustic guitar for about a decade and since then he has been making people roll with laughter, cringe with disgust, become horribly offended or all of the above. His latest 3 Balloons is no different.
The opener is the perfect track to decide whether you would like his brand of humor as “Waiting” has Lynch singing about waiting for his AIDS test to come back. Spoiler alert! It’s negative. “It’s just Chlamydia!”
There are four diary entries, each about 30-40 seconds long chronicling a day in the life of tragic figures like Rodney King and Christopher Reeve, which are hilarious if you have a really morbid sense of humor.
Like any comedy album, especially a musical comedy album, there are hits and misses. “Crazy Peanuts” is an insanely catchy song, but not really funny as he gives an overview of the comic strip created by Charles M. Schultz.
Two of the best are “Fishin’ Hole” where he takes his kid fishing, but the kids gets mad and runs into the street. What does Lynch think? “He’s an asshole, my kid’s an asshole/… / Make me wanna punch him in his little throat.” His list of assholes also includes his wife, a bar, his hemorrhoid and the guy who sold him a mirror. The other one is the title track where he boards a plane with a shopping cart full of drugs and other items shoved “in an uncomfortable place.”
“A History Lesson” has Lynch explaining that he once was an elementary school teacher who was fired for his “unorthodox teaching style.” He sang the lessons to the students. If you haven’t already been able to tell, he wasn’t exactly PG-rated. “Hallelujah” closes out the album with a power ballad dedicated to “them big, big, big titties of yours.”
3 Balloons definitely isn’t for everybody. You have to have a certain sense of humor to enjoy Stephen Lynch. You ostensibly can’t be offended by anything. If you are one of these people, then this album is for you.
Stephen Lynch: http://www.stephenlynch.com
