The meta is strong with this 28 year old song.

The stand up bit that launched a career.

The whole song is ironic, if you imagine the singer is supposing a story tale quality to her life. It's unexpected (and therefore ironic) if I expect my life to turn out perfectly, but then other normal and expected things occur that prevent my fantasy from materializing.

I first heard this joke on a very butch lesbian's stand up special in comedy central like 15 years ago. I think about it every time I hear the song.

I prefer the 10,000 Spoons edit.

As others have pointed out - there are plenty of things in the song that actually are ironic. So what's ironic is people keep complaining about the lack of irony in a song called "Ironic" when it's actually got irony in it.

No 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife

Man waited his whole damn life to take that flight, and as the plane crashed down, he though, "Well isn't this nice"

Those are both irony.