Get More Laughs With Royalty-Free Comedy Tracks

If you’re aiming for the funny bone, give your gags a boost with this curated playlist of royalty-free comedy tracks from the PremiumBeat library.

Maybe you’ve heard the saying “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Perhaps you’ve heard the classic joke: What’s the secret to comedy? They both sort of speak to the same truth: funny ain’t easy.

While the Sacred Art of the Ha-Ha is certainly a difficult one to perfect, one that takes years and years of perseverance, practice, and polish, you can do your next comedy project a favor by giving it a comedic soundtrack (see the curated playlist of royalty-free comedy tracks at the bottom of this post) that creates the kind of lighthearted atmosphere that makes your audience more prone to laughter.

Work with What Works

Using the right music in your comedy clips, skits, and sketches can help you create a shortcut to Comedy Gold if you’re willing to lean on the approach taken by some of the true masters of the craft, like Larry David, who introduced the world to one of television’s all-time great themes, comedy or otherwise.

David first heard the song — “Frolic” by Italian composer Luciano Michelini — in a bank commercial, two years before he put it to use with Curb Your Enthusiasm. He bookmarked the tune in his brain after immediately recognizing its comedic value.

There was something circus-y about it. I like to get away with things, comedically, and sometimes music can help in that regard. It tells the audience: don’t take this seriously—it’s just funny—so a lot of the music we use in the show is designed with that purpose in mind.

At this point, “Frolic” is Larry David, and the song’s loping tuba blurts and plinky-plunky mandolins are synonymous with the observational traumedy-of-error moments that define the best parts of Curb Your Enthusiasm. If you’re hoping to cook up some of that hilarious Curb-type magic, a royalty-free track like “Tarantella” by Adieu Adieu might be just the secret ingredient you need.

Sell the Silly With Show Tunes

As we dug through PremiumBeat’s collection of royalty-free comedy tracks, a common thread emerged: a lot of great comedy music swings with a certain Broadway attitude, which makes sense if you squint hard enough.

One could argue that the show tune DNA found in a lot of successful comedy music comes from the vaudeville traditions of the legendary comedy institutions—The Second City, the Groundlings, and Saturday Night Live—where so many of our favorite funny people got their start. Take 30 Rock, for example, the brainchild of SNL-by-way-of-Second City superstar Tina Fey.

The theme song’s big band sound is bold enough to belong in the opening scene of a Broadway musical where the chorus comes stomping out of the side-of-the-stage shadows. It’s bigger than a genre. It’s bigger than the cast. It’s a tone setter that’s just big, perfect for a show that ripples with authentic NYC energy.

That same energy and urgency pulses in songs like “Tiny Wildlings” by Firefly Music, and it’s easy to imagine this royalty-free comedy track behind a scene of Liz Lemon frantically searching the halls of NBC for Tracy Jordan in order to stop him from Tracy Jordaning all over everything.

A 19-Song Royalty-Free Comedy Tracks Grab Bag

The curated comedy playlist below is clown-car-packed with tunes that bring the zaniness, wackiness, and hardy-har-hars. All of them are yours in perpetuity with a simple $49 Standard License. Pick a couple that tickle your fancy, and let the laugh riot begin.

Cover image via Ollyy.
Header image via Fer Gregory.
Playlist header image via nito.

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