Week 46: "WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC (420 to 30: A Music Retrospective)

almost 3 years ago

Many people are funny and many have musical talent, but few have ever excelled so significantly at both, while pairing them together so masterfully, as "Weird Al" Yankovic has. His irreverence towards the sanctity of pop music and his silly lyrics substitutions introduced me to parody and made Weird Al very appealing to me as a kid, but that he could back that up with such exceptional musical ability is what kept me and, I suspect, many as fans into adulthood.

420 to 30: A Music Retrospective

60 Weeks to 30 Years-Old, with 420 Songs by 60 Different Artists

Here's 7 of my favorites from Weird Al.

Week 46: "WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC

#316/420 - “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Fat”

(originally from 1988, Even Worse)

A very faithful recreation of Michael Jackson’s “Bad”, it’s almost difficult to tell the beginnings apart. But what follows is instead the voice of Weird Al, packing in as many of the best fat jokes as he can into a single song. This is some of his finest work, in my opinion. As the lines are not only each clever, but also fit the song “Bad” so well, right from the “your butt is mine” at the start becoming “your butt is wide.”

Well, I've never used a phone booth, and I've never seen my toes.
When I'm goin' to the movies, I take up seven rows, because I'm fat!
Hilarious.

When I walk out to get my mail, it measures on the Richter scale.

Down at the beach I'm a lucky man, I’m the only one who gets a tan.

When I go to get my shoes shined, I gotta take their word.

And my shadow weighs a’ forty-two pounds.

When I sit around the house, I really sit around the house.

And you know all by myself I'm a crowd.
etc. etc.

It’s an excellent parody and the music video was fantastically done too, as well as the recreation of Michael’s Bad album cover.

Definitely one of Weird Al’s best and most memorable, both the music video, and the song itself.

#317/420 - “Weird Al” Yankovic, “The Saga Begins”

(originally from 1999, “The Saga Begins”)

Written almost entirely via Internet spoilers before the movie even came out, here Weird Al takes Don McLean’s “American Pie”, and rewrites it as the entire plot to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and he absolutely nails it. He hits on every major plot detail, but consistently phrases them in hilarious, simple ways, all through the perspective of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

We escaped from that gas, then met Jar Jar and Boss Nass.
We took a bongo from the scene and we went to Theed to see the queen.
We all wound up on Tatooine.

Some very skilled rhyming throughout, and that he can use such absurd vocabulary so effectively is worth a smile in itself.

Ahh, do you see him hitting on the queen?
Though, he's just nine and she's fourteen?
Yeah, he's probably gonna marry her someday.

I really enjoy the silliness towards plot elements that may otherwise be overlooked or overshadowed too.

While I will admit, “American Pie” is not one of my favorite songs, and it is awfully long, the fact that this version is silly and about Star Wars (albeit, neither my favorite Star Wars movie)—and is done extremely well—makes it my favorite version of this tune.

#318/420 - “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Angry White Boy Polka”

(originally from 2003, Poodle Hat)

This song gets a hearty ROFL from me. This was my first introduction to Weird Al’s polka medleys, and they quickly became some of my favorites of his.

Basically put, this song subverts “Last Resort” by Papa Roach, “Chop Suey!” by System of a Down, “Get Free” by The Vines, “Hate to Say I Told You So” by The Hives, "Fell in Love with a Girl" by The White Stripes, “Last Nite” by The Strokes, “Down with the Sickness” by Disturbed, “Renegades of Funk” by Rage Against the Machine, “My Way” by Limp Bizkit, “Outside” by Staind, “Bawitdaba” by Kid Rock, “Youth of the Nation” by P.O.D., and “The Real Slim Shady” by Eminem, and turns them all into a single, zany polka medley where none of the intended emotion behind any of the songs or lyrics is used, and instead it is happy-go-lucky, extremely goofy, and extremely stupid throughout.

Highlights include censoring profanity in “Last Resort” with a slipping on a banana peel sound effect, Weird Al’s “guh-guh-guh-guh” after that, his giddy “die-die-die-duh-duh-die-die-die-die! Hey!” on “Chop Suey!”, his joyous delivery of “open up your hate and let it flow into me!” on “Down with the Sickness”, the beep-beep sound effect on “My Way”, the quick and ridiculous insert of “Bawitdaba”, and his completely tone-deaf “we are the youth of the nation! Hey!” on “Youth of the Nation”, despite being a song written in response to school shootings. It is truly an impressive arrangement, highly hilarious, and a total time capsule of the songs of this era.

Truthfully, a lot of these songs on their own are actually pretty annoying to me (or even, really annoying) and so this song does slightly suffer the same fate, but it’s so funny if you know the songs it’s parodying, that it’s highly enjoyable nonetheless.

“Hey!”

#319/420 - “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Amish Paradise”

(originally from 1996, Bad Hair Day)

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothing left.
becomes,
As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain,
I take a look at my wife and realize she’s very plain.

One of Weird Al’s most memorable parodies, this one takes on Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” and makes it about the Amish, about as different of a lifestyle from the one described in the original as you can get. The lyrics are full of clever references to the Amish lifestyle and Weird Al even manages to quote the "Gilligan’s Island" theme song. Still funny after all these years, with references that remain just as simultaneously dated and timeless as ever.

We're all crazy Mennonites, living in an Amish paradise.

#320/420 - “Weird Al” Yankovic, “I Think I’m a Clone Now”

(originally from 1988, Even Worse)

Fat jokes and Amish jokes are one thing, but clone jokes? Weird Al committed here, and delivers in droves, parodying Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” with a song about a clone, to a degree that I am genuinely impressed with.

“Born in a science lab late one night, without a mother or a father, just a test tube and a womb with a view.” He describes a test tube laboratory birth from the perspective of the being-born clone as a “womb with a view”. That is hilarious stacked upon hilarious.

“Every pair of genes is a hand-me-down.” That might be the best line Al ever wrote. Just take a moment and applaud this line. How magnificently clever.

“Livin' in stereo, it's all right. Well, I can be my own best friend and I can send myself for pizza so I say, I think I’m a clone now.” And that he only “thinks” he’s a clone “now”, living in stereo? My god, Weird Al is gifted at writing comedy.

#321/420 - “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Alternative Polka”

(originally from 1996, Bad Hair Day)

This nearly took the one spot for me from Weird Al, but just barely was edged out. This is such a great polka and such a great subversion of these songs, almost completely emotionally tone deaf, and hilarity ensues. For me, this is the genre of music Weird Al’s polka medleys were made for, because the lyrics do not fit the style of music whatsoever. It’s perfect.

It starts off almost identically to Beck’s “Loser”, but is quickly overtaken by polka. “I’m a loser, baby, so why don’t you kill me? (stock cartoon gunshot ricochet sound effect) Everybody!” — like it’s a fun sing along, despite the fact that he’s referring to himself as a loser who deserves to be killed, everyone sing along!

The medley then goes on to include “Sex Type Thing” by Stone Temple Pilots, “All I Wanna Do” by Sheryl Crow, “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails, “Bang and Blame” by R.E.M., “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette, “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by The Smashing Pumpkins, “My Friends” by Red Hot Chili Peppers, “I’ll Stick Around” by Foo Fighters, “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden, and “Basket Case” by Green Day.

Further highlights include, Nine Inch Nails’ “help me! I broke apart my insides!” quickly followed by its “I wanna (stock cartoon bonk sound effect) you like an animal!” followed by multiple “hey!”s, and my god how hilarious is “despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage!” by Smashing Pumpkins in this style, and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “I love all of you, hurt by the cold (cartoon “brrrr” sound effect),” and repeated yelling of “I don’t owe you anything!” This song is a riot.

“Or am I just stoned?” is the perfect line to end on too, by Green Day.

What a damn good medley. Bravo Weird Al.

#322/420 - “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Yoda”

(originally from 1985, Dare to Be Stupid)

This is one of the closest things to a perfect song parody I think you can get. Taking on “Lola” by The Kinks, but turning it into a song about Star Wars, Weird Al manages to preserve all of the music integrity of the original, with a near-perfect swap from Lola to Yoda, from C-O-L-A cola to S-O-D-A soda, from meeting her in a club down in North Soho to meeting him in a swamp down in Dagobah. It is just note-for-note pitch-perfect, more than just in a musical sense, but in a lyrical sense as well.

It’s an incredibly fun song, told from the perspective of Luke Skywalker. As clever as any of his work, it’s also highly listenable. I think if you had never heard the original, you could believe this was a sincere work. Even though it is obviously humorous, it fits the music incredibly well. He had to have been happy with himself when he came up with this.

It has some hilarious lines, like saying Yoda is “a guy who looks like a muppet, but he’s wrinkled and green.” For one, that Luke would have knowledge of the Muppets (despite existing a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away) to infer this comparison in the first place, and secondly, in reality, Yoda basically was a muppet, and was performed by Frank Oz, who also did Miss Piggy, among many others with Jim Henson. It’s a double whammy.

“But I know that I'll be coming back some day, I’ll be playing this part 'till I'm old and grey! The long-term contract I had to sign says I'll be making these movies till the end of time with my Yoda.”

Growing up, I always laughed at this section where Luke breaks the fourth wall and refers to being contractually bound to continue making Star Wars films, but now that The Last Jedi has been made, this joke has become prophetic. (Unfortunately.) But it is hilarious that Weird Al saw this one a mile away. More than a mile, really.

Weird Al Yankovic is in a league of his own when it comes to parodies of popular music. Since 1981’s “Another One Rides the Bus”, Weird Al has consistently been putting out music and making major contributions to the world of comedy. And for almost four decades, he has never been dethroned as the de facto king. It’s almost an incomparable feat between any other musicians in any other genre. It’s remarkable, even. Even in the YouTube era, no one with any parodies has reached Weird Al status. It’s deserved though. His lyrics are always smart, and as a musician, he is incredibly skilled both as an original and, for what he is most famous for, parodies. Definitely an inspiration to me as a comedian and writer, Weird Al is a talent for the ages.

And speaking of The Kinks, that’s next week. How’s that for a fluid transition?