Community Property by Steel Panther (2009)

Community Property opens like every lighters-up ballad of 1988: his heart is pure, his love is true, he will always be there for her. Then the last line of the chorus arrives and transfers one asset into public ownership. Guitarist Satchel has said he wrote it after hearing a sappy Top 40 love song in a gym and deciding to keep every cliché and change one line; the line changes everything, every time it comes around, like a twist ending with a mullet.

Feel the Steel, the 2009 album, entered the Billboard 200 at number 98, which is modest for a band that has since sold out arenas on the strength of jokes exactly like this one. Satchel's defence of the song is the best thing about it: nobody believes you when you say your heart belongs to them, but they believe you completely when you say you are going to cheat.

Its afterlife is the sing-along. Steel Panther are the Spinal Tap that tours, and Community Property is the song where the crowd waits for the punchline and delivers it louder than the band, a rare case of an audience volunteering to read out the legal disclaimer. Lick My Love Pump is a one-minute scene in a film; this is the same joke, written as a career.