This Week: The Chronological Refraction of Weird Al Yankovic

let's pretend I know what I mean by that

A few minutes before Weird Al took the stage, I turned to my son and asked him if he remembered how he entered the last time we saw him. We were sitting on an amphitheater lawn, close to the stage but awkwardly off to the side, the white-hot sun still hovering above the treeline. We’d driven two hours to get here, then stood in a snaking line, then walked through metal detectors and bought overpriced beverages, and now we were waiting for Weird Al to show up.

My son and I had seen him once before, almost exactly ten years ago, which means he was six going on seven and now he’s sixteen going on seventeen. It seemed like a stretch that he’d remember Weird Al’s opening number, except for:

1. My son has a killer memory

and

2. At the end of that first show, when I asked him if he liked it, he said to me, “I wish we had a time machine so that we could see it all over again.”

So I thought there was a chance he’d remember. But no. He shook his head. He didn’t. Why?

Oh, because it was cool, I said. He did Tacky, but he started way off stage, out of sight. The band played on stage, while the camera projected onto the venue screen followed Weird Al as he sang. So, you’re watching him approach, and waiting for him to fully arrive, and then finally he’s walking through the audience.

My son said oh yeah, he vaguely remembered.

And then, three minutes later, the show started. And it was Tacky. And once again Weird Al was on the screen, and then walking through the crowd, and then on the stage. You know, like a time machine.

For a second I was disappointed. Like, were we going to watch the exact same show we watched ten years ago?

But then I realized this was the quintessential Weird Al time-warp experience. Hear me out:

The bit works because Weird Al is suspended in time. You’re watching a video of him, but it’s a livestream and not a recording. So you know he’s here, approaching, but not quite here—not yet. It’s the suspension that’s delicious. And then, of course, the payoff when he arrives.

The joy of Weird Al is not that he’s brand new or particularly relevant to any one historical moment.

The joy of Weird Al is that he transcends all historical moments.

Take, for instance, Eat it.

What if I tell you that Eat it transcends Beat it? Okay, maybe not in every context, but in my little corner of the world it does. Both my kids could probably sing 80% of the lyrics to Eat it. If I asked them what song it was a parody of, I think they’d know the answer. Surely they’ve heard of Michael Jackson, but they know Weird Al.

When we talk about Weird Al songs as parodies, I’d argue that we’re using that term loosely. There are a few songs, like Smells Like Nirvana¹, that directly spoof the band or the genre. But many of Weird Al’s most popular songs—Like a Surgeon, Amish Paradise, The Saga Begins—transport us far from the cultural relevence of the original hit. In the Weird Al universe, there’s no gang violence or tragic plane crashes or pop-culture icons appropriating catholic symbolism, there’s just fantasy and everyday silliness. It is, for the most part², a safe apolitical world, like an adolescent version of Richard Scarry’s Busytown, one where we get to make fun of each other but no conflict is worth taking too seriously.

This is starting to sound like faint praise, but I don’t mean it that way. I didn’t expect the Weird Al show to transport me. But it did—to a million places. To my own childhood where Dare to Be Stupid was one of the first records I bought with allowance money. To my young adulthood hearing Amish Paradise in a friend’s punk boyfriend’s car and being amazed that Weird Al was still doing his thing—and that the twenty-something punks were listening to him. To the days of parenting young kids who couldn’t stand most children’s music but who filled my iTunes library with all the Weird Al albums.

There was a moment when Weird Al reentered the stage after a costume change and played Dare to Be Stupid, a song styled after the 80s band Devo. The performance was crisp, and and I noticed that the stranger next to me was mouthing all the words. And then I looked around. There were kids younger than my kids mouthing the words. There were adults of all ages and genders mouthing the words. No one was singing—they didn’t dare interfere. But we were all participating, reciting the litany. We knew all the words because we’d all heard the song a billion times, by choice or by chance. Weird Al had been performing it for 40 years. And no one was sick of it yet.

1. A contender for my favorite Weird Al song is “Trapped in the Drive-Thru”, a 10-minute parody of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet.” I’d argue that this one is a true parody in that it deeply engages the drama of the original by inverting it, and we get this insanely compelling song about trying to figure out with a spouse what’s for dinner when you’re not even that hungry. The stakes couldn’t be lower!! And yet! It’s riveting!

[My son wants me to add that his own nomination “Everything You Know is Wrong” as Weird Al’s best song, arguing it’s “a beautiful distillation of his comedic style, on top of being a well-written song with a really fun melody and chord progression”]

[My runner-up is White & Nerdy, which is so objectively great it requires no explanation, but sometimes I forget about Donny Osmond’s amazing cameo in the music video. Apparently Weird Al invited him to the project saying he was the “whitest guy he could think of.” And this is, apparently, their first unrehearsed take: ]

2. There are notable exceptions to this, for instance “I Remember Larry” which describes a murder in graphic detail and which is one of the few songs I’ve ever asked my kids to turn off.