This paper examined methods of creating laughter in folk songs, focusing on The Taffy Seller’s Ballad. Both a commercial labor song and a tout’s song, with characteristics of an entertainment song as well, The Taffy Seller’s Ballad began as a commercial labor song sung while selling taffy that gradually lost this function and gradually grew to resemble a entertainment song more and more.
This Taffy Seller’s Ballad consists of two parts, the part that served to advertise the merchandise through puns based on the principle of similarity in meaning and the part used to attract customers through exaggerated advertisement that used hyperbole. People laughed as they listened to and sang The Taffy Seller’s Ballad. This laughter is meaningful because it freed people from tension or mental fetters and served as a bond of sympathy to draw people together as one.
Next to be examined were the successors to The Taffy Seller’s Ballad, certain comic songs that were sung and enjoyed during the Japanese colonial period. The comic songs Selling Good Fortune and Watermelon Peddler succeeded The Taffy Seller’s Ballad in the manner in which they created laughter. These comic songs created laughter according to the basic principles of advertising merchandise through puns and attracting customers through exaggerated advertisements. And as people listened to and sang these comic songs, they formed the same bonds of sympathy that they had formed when they heard The Taffy Seller’s Ballad.