Parody and Satire: Yuppies in the Sky

Tom Paxton: Yuppies in the Sky

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In the 1960s, there were hippies. The 1980s had yuppies. It stands for Young Upwardly-mobile Professionals, and I was never clear on why it wasn’t yumpies. The idea was that the youth of that period were obsessed with the pursuit of material wealth, and with showing that wealth off with their conspicuous consumption. Yuppies would sport the latest technology, and would dress in a way that suggested they had attended ivy league schools. The mind set is still very much with us today, but the term has all but disappeared. Tom Paxton satirized the yuppies perfectly in Yuppies in the Sky, and the song also qualifies as a parody, since it is based on Ghost Riders in the Sky.