Top 5 Weird Al Songs That Are Better Than the Original

In a passing conversation recently, I mentioned "Eat It" to my son, and it became clear that, not only did he have no idea who Weird Al Yankovic is, he was equally unfamiliar with Michael Jackson's "Beat It", the song that "Eat It" was based on.

I wanted to show him the Weird Al song, but "Eat It" is only funny if you know "Beat It." After showing him the videos for both tunes (he laughed), he went off to do this own thing, while I remained at the desktop and allowed myself to get sucked into Youtube's collection of Weird Al songs and clips.

The realization hit me: many of the songs that Weird Al made in fun are actually better tunes than the ones being parodied. Here, then, is my list of the best Weird Al creations that are better than the original:

5. "Achy Breaky Song"

Original: "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus

Comment: This one is unique in that the entire point of the Weird Al song is to dis the Billy Ray original.

4. "Do I Creep You Out?"

Original: "Do I Make You Proud" by "Taylor Hicks"

Comment: Most "American Idol" winners are contractually obligated to issue an embarrassingly bad first single composed by music-mill writers, and "Do I Make You Proud" is one of the most bloated of the lot. "Do I Creep You Out" captures the song's soap-opera-ness and adds lyrics which exploit the melodrama in the best way possible.

3. "Jurassic Park"

Original: "MacArthur Park"

Comment: Weird Al uses Steven Spielberg's movie adaptation of Michael Crighton's novel to take a swipe at Barney the Dinosaur as he takes on the song with the worst lyrics in music history (low point: "Someone left the cake out in the rain/I don't think that I can take it/Cause it took so long to bake it/And I'll never have the recipe again/Oh NOOOOOO!")

2. "Ricky"

Original: "Mickey"

Comment: Basing it on "I Love Lucy" is genius. Toni Basil's "Mickey"is one of most irritating songs of my lifetime.

1. "Yoda"

Original: "Lola" by the Kinks

Comment: Although "Lola" is highly regarded among critics and even made the list of 500 Greatest Songs by Rolling Stone magazine, in my view, it's pretty lousy. I fully realize that my assessment of "Lola" makes me lose credibility with music snobs, and I'm comfortable with that.

How about you? What is your favorite Weird Al song?

Comments

Saying goodbye to one set of twins, and hello to another

"It's been ten whole years already? Wow! Hard to believe." Many a father will say something like that while shaking his head in disbelief, when his oldest approaches the 10th birthday. It's a milestone, not just for the kid, but for the parents. It's a head-shaker because I am reminded that on that day, 10 years ago, my life changed forever. In some ways, it has passed very quickly. In other ways, it seems like it's been every bit of ten years. There are two distinct things, though, about the ten-year anniversary of my dadhood. The first is that I became a father of not one, but two little bundles of joy that Tuesday morning. Abby was born at 8:48, followed by her brother Jacob at 8:50. The second is that their birth marked some rare joy in the midst of the darkest day in our nation's history. As my wife was in labor, a nurse came in and told us that an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York. I turned on the labor room...

Embarrassing video clip--John Cougar

I recently stumbled across some Youtube gold: a live performance by John Mellencamp when he was Johnny Cougar. He appears to be have been about 23, and he's singing "Ain't even Done With The Night", in front of a fairly unresponsive crowd with Bobby Bare (?!) in the front seat. Cougar/Mellencamp is dressed in a nerdy sweater and generally bears no resemblance to the singer as we knew him just 5 years later. He looks a lot more like Potsie from Happy Days than the guy who sang "Pink Houses". Certainly, there is no way to watch this and make a connection to the guy whose song "This is Our Country" beat us to death by overuse in pickup truck commercials. But the real entertainment value from this clip comes from the guys behind Cougar. In hot-pink tuxedos, there are 5 Pips-like backup dancers/singers who don't sing, but clap their hands real well. They essentially spend the entire song performing cheerleader dance routines not unlike those ...

The Two Christmases

As I walked through the front door of the Post Office to make my stamp purchase, I was faced with a choice. On my left was a vending machine, and to my right was the customer service desk, where I could make the purchase from actual human beings. Because there was no line at the moment, I chose the human interaction. I strolled up to the middle-aged, slightly balding postal employee, read that his name was "Rex", and I asked for two books of stamps. As it was mid-December, Rex asked me "would you like Christmas stamps, or...". Once I realized he wasn't about to complete the sentence, I looked down and saw that he was holding some very un-Christmas-like stamps bearing images of the Liberty Bell and the word "Forever." Knowing that my wife had planned to mail several Christmas cards, I told him "One of each." To my surprise, the decision-making did not stop there. Rex hit me with a follow-up: he held up two types of stamps: one had a pi...

Middletree

Search This Blog