Parody about the river's soft, except the ending (5)
I believe the answer is:
spoof
'parody' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'about the river's soft except the ending' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'about' could be 'of' and 'of' is present in the answer.
'soft' could be 'p' (musical abbreviation for 'piano', soft) and 'p' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'so' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for spoof that I've seen before include "Parody - prank" , "Send-up" , "Satirical imitation" , "Parody - hoax" , "Take-off" .)