My Weirder Al Yankovic Playlist (1 of 4)

The parodies and the personal.

Weird Al Yankovic hardly needs any introduction. Though he’s had only one top ten hit, he’s been the name in comedy music since he started recording in the 1980s. When my wife and I mention other comedy musicians to our friends, we’ll usually explain that they’re “like Weird Al, only not as famous.”

The twelve selections I’m rolling out here are not a “top twelve list” of Yankovic’s work. They’re a personal playlist. Each calls up a few memories or associations for me, and I’ll get into those while glancing at their wordplay aspects.

My first exposure to Weird Al came from Muppet Magazine, of all places. It reprinted lyrics to two of his songs. One, “Eat It,” was his biggest hit of the era. But young T preferred the other set of lyrics, “I Love Rocky Road.” The song may have introduced me to the concept of rocky road, but loving ice cream? That’s as relatable as songs get.

(To be honest, just writing this is getting me thinking I’d like to go pick up some ice cream at the grocery…Hang on, I’ll be right back…)

(Gave some to Janice, of course!)

This was Al’s second music video—the first, “Ricky,” was a straight-up I Love Lucy parody, with just a small nod to the video for its musical model, “Mickey.” This video takes more cues from Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll.” Al, in Jett-inspired fashions, walks into a place of business like he owns it and gets the crowd pumping their fists. Al’s videos, like his song parodies, would include similar cues going forward.

Where were you when Optimus Prime died?

I was at home, having not convinced my parents to let me see The Transformers: The Movie in the theater…and not sure I even wanted to. I’d heard rumors its violence could be a lot for my sensitive preteen eyes. Those rumors, I’d later learn, were understatements.

But it also had lighthearted bits like the Junkions, a race of addled scavenger-bots on a scrap-heap world. The Junkions don’t get much time for character development. What they do get is a theme song that sells their demented silliness much better than anything else onscreen—Weird Al’s “Dare to Be Stupid.”

The song inverts aphorisms (“let your babies grow up to be cowboys,” “sell some wine before its time”), and sprinkles in advice that’s straight-up bad or surreal, Al realized that, like hippies and girl rockers, 1980s nerds craved their own style of subversion. This was a nonconformist’s revolutionary anthem. It wouldn’t be his last. (The original video is here.)

“Yoda” was a theme song of my days as a camp counselor. One of the kids I looked after had made it his favorite, and he played it often enough on his bunk-bed boom box that even today, I can’t hear it without seeing the campground in my mind’s eye.

“Yoda” is also an interesting match with its inspiration, “Lola.” Despite the drastic differences between them, both songs are about a young man finding someone who walks into his life and changes his whole worldview—not just by what they say, but by everything they do and are.

Weird Al songs often have that kind of affectionate resonance with their source material. Most are less satiric jabs than they are collaborations. The points where the lyrical echoes are strongest (“I’m not dumb, but I can’t understand…”) tend to show that sympathy the best.