Playlist: Weird Al Yankovic Annotated

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Lampooning popular songs since the late 1970s, Weird Al became a staple of American pop culture—even if he has all but disappeared over the past decade. Now he's being celebrated in a new movie parody of his life: Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, starring Daniel Radcliffe as the curly-haired singer, is itself a send-up of biopics. Here's a look back at some highlights from Yankovic's more than four decades of musical humor. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz "My Bologna" (1979) It all started with The Knack. In 1979, Cal Poly student Alfred Yankovic—soon to be known as Weird Al—was working as a DJ at the college radio station when, as he later told Entertainment Weekly, "every other request on the phone line was for … 'My Sharona.'" So he had the "stupid idea" for a parody, "My Bologna," which he recorded in a bathroom across the hall from the station "because the bathroom had this acoustically perfect tiled vibe—the old Bathroom Wall Of Sound." Naturally, he played his accordion on the tape. Yankovic sent "My "Bologna" ("Ooh, my little hungry one, hungry one/ Open up a package of my bologna"—also a wink at Oscar Mayer's "My bologna has a first name" jingle) to the syndicated national radio program The Dr. Demento Show, where it became a hit—even taking the top spot on the show's "Funny Five" countdown. When it was No. 1 for two weeks in a row, Yankovic told EW, "I thought, 'Well, it'll never get better than this. I've reached my peak.'" But when he managed to sneak backstage at a Knack concert not long after and introduced himself to the band, singer Doug Fieger—who, it turns out, loved the parody—turned to Rupert Perry, an VP of A&R at Capitol Records, and said, "You should put this guy's song out on Capitol Records." The label paid Yankovic $500 for the master and its B-side, "School Cafeteria" and released "My Bologna" as a single. The song sold 10,000 copies in about a month, but the label didn't promote it. "Another One Rides the Bus" (1980) But Yankovic's career wasn't over already. Instead, it was Dr. Demento to the rescue once again. This time Yankovic turned his wit and accordion to a goof on Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" (Couldn't find a seat so I had to stand/ With the perverts in the back"). It hadn't even been recorded until a sound check before he performed it live on The Dr. Demento Show. "For the next few weeks we got twice as many requests for 'Another One Rides the Bus' as for everything else put together. Thank goodness I had a tape rolling!" Dr. Demento (Barry Hansen) has said. "Over the next couple of months that tape was duplicated and re-duplicated all over the world, as the song took on a life of its own. [...] The Dr. Demento Show gained a couple of dozen new station affiliates just because of that song." Demento ended up loaning Yankovic money to press 1,000 copies of a four-song EP including "Another One Bites the Dust." Legend has it that the song ended up being the most requested in the history of The Dr. Demento Show—and it actually charted, albeit at 104 on Billboard's Bubbling Under chart. Once again, Yankovic has said, 'So I thought, "This is as big as it's gonna get.'" "I Love Rocky Road" (1983) Yankovic—who by then had graduated from Cal Poly with an architecture degree—returned with a parody of a cover: Joan Jett's version of the Arrows' "I Love Rock 'n' Roll." The ice-cream themed ("Yeah, but chocolate's gettin' old/ Vanilla just leaves me cold") version was one of the first where Yankovic decided to get the artist's blessing, so he asked the Arrows' songwriters Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker. "Jake Hooker said, 'Well, that sounds like a great idea, and by the way I happen to manage ["Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" singer and guitarist] Rick Derringer, and I think Rick would be really interested in being part of this project," Yankovic later told EW. "I met with Rick, and I was a big fan of his, and I was honored and flattered that he wanted to work with me, and he ended up producing my first six albums"—including the one this song is on, "Weird Al" Yankovic. As usual, the song was graced by the presence of Yankovic's pal "Musical Mike" Kieffer and his hand-fart percussion. "Eat It" (1984) This parody of Michael Jackson's monster hit "Beat It" opened new doors for Yankovic, just because Jackson agreed to it. "Prior to that, we were getting a lot of resistance and reluctance from people who were like, 'I don't know about this Weird Al guy and if I should let him do a parody,'" Yankovic told EW. "But after we were able to tell them, 'Well, Michael Jackson didn't seem to have a problem with it,' they were like, 'Well, sure!" Not that Yankovic necessarily thinks lyrics like "Have some more chicken, have some more pie/ It doesn't matter if it's broiled or fried" are his best work. "'Eat It' is not that clever a variation on 'Beat It.' It's probably the most obvious pun. If YouTube had existed in 1984, there would have been a million 'Eat It' parodies," he has said. Derringer stepped in for the guitar solo, in lieu of Eddie Van Halen's original. But Yankvovic would go on to pull his Jackson parodies from his live setlist after the documentary Leaving Neverland, which exposed child abuse claims against Jackson. "Like a Surgeon" (1985) Allegedly, Yankovic's MTV-hit parody of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" is one of the few times that he's actually taken a suggestion from someone within the original artist's camp to spoof a song. According to legend, Madonna remarked to a mutual friend that she wondered how long it would take Yankovic to claim the song; the mutual friend then passed that along. Otherwise, it's said that Yankovic openly discourages such ideas. "Yoda" (1985/86) For this cut from the album Dare To Be Stupid, Yankovic mashed up "Lola" by the Kinks with the plot of The Empire Strikes Back. It was originally heard on The Dr. Demento Show back in the early 1980s, but it took years for Yankovic to get permission from movie creator George Lucas as well as songwriter Ray Davies. In fact, the song's publishers originally turned down the idea. But during a chance encounter with the Kinks' frontman, Yankovic asked Davies why he hadn't given his blessing. Turns out, Davies had never been asked. He said yes, and that set a precedent for Yankovic to try and reach songwriters rather than publishers. "Dare To Be Stupid" (1986) In addition to parodies, Yankovic also creates pastiche tributes—what he calls "style parodies"—to a band's catalog or an era in their career. For the title track of his third album, he took on Devo and, specifically, the Oh, No! It's Devo album from 1982, with musical references to "Deep Sleep," "Explosions," "Big Mess" and "Time Out for Fun," as well as the synth line of the now-classic "Whip It." (Lyrically, there's also a nod to Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, as Yankovic sings, "let your babies grow up to be cowboys.") Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh was honored, telling Behind the Music: "I was in shock. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard." "Christmas at Ground Zero" (1986) Pushed by his label to release a Christmas record, Yankovic reportedly didn't deliver what was wanted with this tune about nukes and the end of the world (released 15 years before the term "Ground Zero" would come to represent the tragic former World Trade Center site in New York City): "It's Christmas at ground zero/ The button has been pressed/ The radio just let us know that this is not a test/ Everywhere the atom bombs are dropping/ It's the end of all humanity/ No more time for last minute shopping/ It's time to face your final destiny." "Lasagna" (1988) Although made famous by Ritchie Valens in 1958—and again by Los Lobos when they covered his version for the 1987 biopic of the Chicano singer's short life—Yankovic didn't have to ask Valens's estate for permission to parody "La Bamba." A traditional folk song, the tune has been around so long it's not attributed to any writer. He actually considered recording the track in Italian, until he realized the humor ("Mama mia bambino/ 'samatta you/ 'Samatta you, 'samatta you) would get lost. "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies" (1989) From the soundtrack to Yankovic's now cult film UHF, this song applies the (slightly altered) lyrics of the theme song from The Beverly Hillbillies to the music of Dire Straits' 1985 hit "Money for Nothing." But the only way that band would agree to Yankovic parodying their work was if he agreed to let songwriter and frontman Mark Knopfler play guitar on it. He did, and Dire Straits' keyboardist Guy Fletcher is on the track as well. Yankovic originally wanted to use Prince's "Let's Go Crazy," but Prince never approved any of his parody requests. "Smells Like Nirvana" (1992) This is another one where Yankovic couldn't get permission by going through official channels. But when he found out that Nirvana would be performing on Saturday Night Live, he called cast member Victoria Jackson—who had co-starred in UHF—and asked for help. She put him on the phone with Kurt Cobain who said yes as soon as he heard the idea: The song would be about the singer's incomprehensible lyrics, with Yankovic garbling the lyrics and having marbles fall out of his mouth in the video. Cobain reportedly took it as a sign that Nirvana had made it. "Bedrock Anthem" (1993) A mini style parody, this song from the Alapalooza album lampoons the Red Hot Chili Peppers' hits "Under the Bridge" and "Give It Away" with lyrics about The Flintstones. ("Wanna chill with a saber-tooth tiger/ Wear a loincloth, natural fiber/ Be the first Rolling Stone subscriber/ Got a pterodactyl for a windshield wiper.") But the funk-rock band wasn't exactly into it. "I didn't think it was very good. I enjoy Weird Al's things, but I found it unimaginative. It wasn't that great. 'Yabba Dabba Doo,'" said bassist Flea. "I like Weird Al and everything. But you know everyone is hit or miss, except for me, of course." Yankovic admitted to being savvy about the song in that he wrote and released it after hearing there was a Flintstones movie being released; it worked—the song was included on the soundtrack. "Amish Paradise" (1996) Although Coolio's record label agreed to let Yankovic parody the rapper's song "Gangsta's Paradise," Coolio wasn't having it. But Yankovic went ahead with the send-up of Amish culture. "I've been milkin' and plowin' so long that/ Even Ezekiel thinks that my mind is gone," he sings. "I'm a man of the land, I'm into discipline/ Got a Bible in my hand and a beard on my chin." Yankovic later told Behind the Music that he had apologized to Coolio by letter and not heard back. In 2016, Coolio told Hot Ones that saying no to the satire was "stupid … I mean, [Yankovic] did Michael Jackson … people who were definitely more talented than I am." Yankovic also said that the two had "hugged it out." Admittedly, like 1999's "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi," the song contains some cultural mockery that feels cringe-y a few decades on.` "Genius In France" (2003) Calling this style tribute a "real labor of love," Yankovic has also said that this pastiche of 1970s Frank Zappa—recorded in some 17 separate sections and spliced together—was "very difficult to achieve" and took him two or three months. Zappa is one of my all-time heroes, so there was this extra pressure," he told EW. "You don't want to mess up." The track works in tributes to Zappa's doo-wop covers and the Läther, Joe's Garage, and Sheik Yerbouti records, among others. Not only was the song made with the support of Zappa's estate but his son Dweezil plays the opening guitar riff. "Couch Potato" (2003) This parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" was originally going to be the lead single off Yankvic's Poodle Hat album and have a video, but plans were scrapped last-minute when Eminem shot down the idea. "Eminem forced me to halt production on the video … because he somehow thought it would be harmful to his image of career," Yankovic told the Chicago Sun Times. The song name-checks a slew of mind-numbing TV shows and personalities, including The Osbournes, Anna Nicole Smith, Simon Cowell, E! True Hollywood Story, Celebrity Mole and more. "White & Nerdy" (2005) Yankovic landed his first and, so far, only Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with this spoof of Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone's "Ridin'." "First in my class here at M.I.T./ Got skills, I'm a champion at DND/ MC Escher, that's my favorite MC/ Keep your 40, I'll just have an Earl Grey tea," he raps to the delight of Chamillionaire who has said, "He's actually rapping pretty good on it, it's crazy." Yankovic has revealed that the rapper sought him out on the Grammys red carpet and thanked him. "TMZ" (2010) Country has never been Yankovic's genre of choice. Other than a couple of general style parodies, he had only spoofed Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart" ("Achy Breaky Song")—until he took on Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me." This was also the era when TMZ was new and omnipresent, offering the world a look at the more, uh, human side of celebrities. "Following you/ When you're walking down the street/ And asking stupid questions/ While you're trying to eat," he sings. "So you cover your face/ Thinking to yourself/ 'Hey, isn't this creepy?'" "Skipper Dan" (2011) A style parody of Weezer, "Skipper Dan" is lyrically based on a real-life trip that Yankovic took with his family to Disneyland. "We went on the Jungle Cruise and the skipper just made some offhand comment about his failed acting career, and a lightbulb just went off and I thought, 'There's a whole song there,'" Yankovic recalled to the A.V. Club. "So I created a whole backstory for this guy, and made him a very bitter failed actor who once had a promising career, and now his life has devolved into basically doing a seven-minute bad comedy routine 34 times a day." The biting lyrics include lines like: "I graduated first in my class at Juilliard … Oh, the critics, they used to say/ I was the new Olivier/ Thought I'd be the toast of Sundance or maybe Cannes … Now I'm laughing at my own jokes but I'm cryin' inside/ Cause I'm working on the Jungle Cruise ride." The singer has said, "The skippers at Disneyland seem to really like it, and the people in the acting profession, especially those who are struggling, don't seem to like it so much. It really brings them down." "Word Crimes" (2014) This parody of Robin Thicke's controversial "Blurred Lines" was on Yankovic's most recent album, Mandatory Fun. (He declined to sign a new contract with any label after that.) He has pointed out that there were already plenty of "Blurred Lines" parodies on the Internet, but "those parodies were about the song itself, making fun of the song's misogynistic lyrics and sort of 'rapey' overtones," he told EW. "So I figured that the song deserved a parody where we focus on the properties of grammar." Among those he takes to task: lazy internet commenters, people who use the word "literally" to describe decidedly non-literal situations and those who say they "could care less" when they mean the opposite. "Say you got an 'I,' 'T'/ Followed by apostrophe 'S'/ Now what does that mean? You would not use "it's" in this case/ As a possessive/ It's a contraction," he snipes—even adding a split infinitive ("Try your best to not drool") to see if listeners caught it. After songwriters Thicke and Pharrell Williams were legally ordered to pay the estate of Marvin Gaye royalties for taking too much of the late singer's "Got to Give It Up" for their song, and give credit to Gaye, Yankovic also had to add the credit. "The Hamilton Polka" (2018) Yankovic has long performed mash-ups of popular songs recast as goofy, bouncy and sometimes lounge-lizard polka tracks—from "Hooked on Polkas" ("The Reflex" by Duran Duran, "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)" by Quiet Riot) to "The Alternative Polka" (including "Loser" by Beck, "Basket Case" by Green Day). This combo platter features several songs from the musical Hamilton and was part of creator Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamildrop" series, releasing monthly reworkings of the show's tracks by artists such as Mobb Deep, the Decemberists and the Regrettes. But it's also notable in that it's the last song Yankovic has released in more than three years—and his last public work before that was in 2014, marking the longest gap in his career ever.