The Power Of Music & Comedy: Tim Minchin

Tim Minchin is a thoughtful performer who combines the power of music and comedy to both entertain and impact his audience, while expressing what is on his mind in an engaging and memorable way.

I first came across Tim when a friend offered me a ticket to his Sydney show during the Ready For This? tour in 2009. While I’d never heard of him before, I was immediately drawn in by the proficiency of his piano playing, the intellectual nature of his comedic observations, and his bizarre teased hairstyle.

Tim’s meteoric rise to fame was captured in the documentary Rock ‘n’ Roll Nerd, named after one of his early signature tunes that expressed ambivalence at not fitting the traditional rock star mould:

While he achieved success as a musical comedian in a relatively short period of time, it came after many years of playing keyboard in an 80’s rock cover band. At the beginning of his career he as constantly under pressure to create an income as his wife was keen to give up work and start a family. They were both overjoyed when she became pregnant, but this also ratcheted up the pressure on Tim to provide for his family financially. A particularly vulnerable moment in the documentary happens when his wife has a miscarriage while he is on tour, and we get to see Tim in grief revealing his sensitive side. There is more to him than just his on-stage trickster persona. The one silver lining in this cloud was that gave him some breathing space to launch his career, move to London and become successful before they became pregnant again.

Giles Hardie said that Tim’s success was often a reflection his past experiences, describing him as a “jack of all trades” and quoting co-star David Duchovny from TV series Californication calling him “a high-energy dude” with a “comedic soul”. In an interview with Leigh Sales, Tim described his joy in musical collaboration and the difficulty of avoiding celebrity narcissism.

His song Canvas Bags drives home the importance of taking reusable shopping bags to the supermarket with a degree of repetition bordering on the absurd. We don’t even use canvas bags much in Australia, but with this song in my head, I always remember to take shopping bags every time I leave the house:

One of the hallmarks of a great artist is getting referenced in other artist’s work, and the inclusion of Canvas Bags in the Four Chord Song by The Axis of Awesome is a nod of respect from his comedy colleagues:

Tim frequently tackles important issues in his music, such as the foolishness of belief systems based on pseudoscience in his 9-minute beat poem Storm:

His song Prejudice uses an ironic twist to assault racism:

Tim isn’t afraid to offend his audience, using profanity to highlight the distorted priorities of the Catholic Church’s response to child sexual abuse by priests in Pope Song.

If you think the song is offensive, how could that possibly compare to what some priests have been doing to children with the protection of the church?

Neil Genzlinger says Tim “looks like a character out of ‘Sweeney Todd,’ alternates between absurd, low-key monologues and incongruously comic songs, accompanying himself with gleeful piano pyrotechnics.”

While his ability to weave his comedic genius into his songs is the underpinning of his success, he also has the ability to write sensitive songs. White Wine In The Sun describes the strong emotional dynamics in families as the basis for our feelings of safety and security in the world. Even for atheists like Tim and I, spending quality time with family on Christmas Day feels special, and hearing this song always makes me tear up as I think of Christmas Days spent with my own family in the sun together:

Social issues have always been a significant influence on Tim’s work, and his ability to write, record and produce catchy, quirky and relatable songs rapidly allows him to respond to newsworthy events in a timely manner. Come Home (Cardinal Pell) expressed the outrage that many Australian’s felt at the perception that Cardinal George Pell was avoiding Australian justice by hiding out in The Vatican:

However, Joel Hodge considered it “name-calling and abuse”, saying Tim “seems more interested in provoking reaction than dealing with the facts”, and that “it gives an indication of the level of public debate in Australia”. Gerard Henderson described the song as “abusive”, calling Tim a “militant atheist musician” and accusing him of engaging in guilt by association.

In the wake of the recent bush fire disaster and the coronavirus lockdown, Tim featured on HouseFyre with Briggs, expressing the frustration that many Australians feel with our political leadership’s response in recent times of major crisis:

It got played on Rage last Friday night, a sign of success and mainstream acceptance in the Australian music industry.

Music is unique in its ability to affect us emotionally, and comedy is unique in its ability to disarm our prejudices and highlight inconsistencies in ourselves which we could otherwise easily ignore. By combining the two, Tim Minchin has tapped into a powerful force to not only entertain, but also to enlighten his audience and inspire social change from a grassroots individual level.