I’m a big Weird Al fan, but we only have two of his albums on cassette: Bad Hair Day and Alapalooza. Both are filled with songs of high hilarity, along with a few groaners here and there...
Jurassic Park - Man, I gotta love this one. I’m a big fan of Jimmy Webb, who wrote many songs that Art Garfunkel sings, including All I Know, his first solo hit. But when I found out he wrote MacArthur Park,
I was shocked. Suffice it to say, I think the parody makes a whole lot
more sense than the original. Even Webb can’t seem to remember what he
was talking about throughout most of the song. This isn’t quite as long
as the original, which, with the late, great Richard Harris at the helm,
got the distinction for longest song to hit number one on the charts,
beating out American Pie and Hey, Jude. But it does feature the same Mr. Bill-esque “ohhhhhhh, nooooooooo!!!!!!!” caterwauling towards the end.
Sung in the voice of Malcolm, my favorite character from Jurassic Park (Jeff Goldblum so too adorable, and I credit the movie for introducing me to him), it, like Gump,
essentially rehashes the plot of the movie, but this time the lyrics
are a lot more complicated and everything is done from the perspective
of a particular character. A couple references throughout the song make
it clear this is the speaker: namely, “A big tyrannosaurus ate our
lawyer; well, I suppose that proves they’re really not all bad” (which
is preceded by my favorite line in the song, “I cannot approve of this
attraction, ‘cause getting disemboweled always makes me kinda mad”) and
“this proves my Chaos Theory.” The sounds of people screaming and
running from dinosaurs add to this song’s ambiance. Probably my favorite
song on the album.
Young, Dumb, and Ugly - An Al
original, this song falls on the harder side of rock, with the speakers
trying to sound harsh and fierce. They want to convey the impression
that they’re not to be messed with, but the examples they provide just
make them come across as rather silly. The offenses of these dangerous
fellows include leaving a ten percent tip, squeezing toothpaste from the
middle, paying phone bills at the last minute (this popped up in Bad Hair Day’s Everything You Know is Wrong
- after being offered a chance by the aliens who abducted him to go
back to any point in history he desired, he went back in time a week so
he could pay his phone bill on time), drinking milk from the carton, and
keeping overdue library books for a long time. Ooooh, I’m shaking in my
sandals!
Bedrock Anthem - This parody of two Red Hot Chili Peppers songs, the slower, pretty Under the Bridge and the loud and raucous Give it Away
pays homage to everyone’s favorite prehistoric family (guess it goes
along with the dinosaur theme). After a slow introduction parodying the
former song, the majority of the song is loud and mostly just lists the
different people and things to be found in Bedrock: Wilma, Pebbles,
Dino, Barney (who has “caveman stubble”), and all those nifty Stone Age
gadgets involving the slight mistreatment of some creature or another
(pterodactyl windshield wipers, bird work whistle, baby elephant vacuum
cleaner). And, of course, it’s got a few “yabba dabba doo”s!
Frank’s 2000” TV
- This is taking the idea of a big-screen TV to a ridiculous level!
Kind of a pretty song, featuring a chorus that chimes in to repeat
whenever Al sings the title phrase. This song about a man’s ludicrously
large TV set is a nice mellow tune. “It dwarfs the might redwoods and it
towers over everyone” “Robert DeNiro’s mole has gotta be ten feet
wide.”
Achy Breaky Song - My brother first heard this song a couple years before he became a Weird Al fan. Parodying Billy Ray Cryus’ Achy Breaky Heart,
widely played on the radio at the time, it delves into the speaker’s
hatred for Cyrus’ song. The list of things the speaker would rather do
than put up with this tune grow more deplorable as the song progresses,
concluding with the assertion that being tied to a chair and thrown down
the stairs or finding a pitchfork lodged in his brain would be
preferable to having to listening to Billy Ray. The song also includes a
list of apparently cringe-worthy singers - Donny and Marie, New Kids on
the Block, the Village People, Vanilla Ice, the Bee Gees, Debbie Boone,
Abba, Slim Whitman, Zamfir, Yoko Ono, and Tiffany - though I must admit
I like a couple who made the list…
Traffic Jam - This
loud song does a good job of sounding like the speaker is stuck in a
traffic jam. He’s very frustrated, and hey, who wouldn’t be? He’s been
on the road five hours and can still see his house! A song anyone who
has ever been in a traffic jam can appreciate.
Talk Soup
- Making fun of folks who go on talk shows and spill their guts. I
wonder this song may have been the inspiration for my 14-year-old
brother’s fictional talk show, Talk Soupy… The whole song is a
crazy list of strange habits and disorders that could land this guy on a
talk show, from his wife running off with Elvis to enjoying yodeling in
the nude. “I'm just an anorexic codependent bingo addict stripper born
without a chin, and I'm only comfortable talking about it when the whole
wide world is listening in.”
Livin’ in the Fridge - This parody of Aerosmith’s Livin’ on the Edge
is a tentative quest to discover the identity of that mystery item in
the back of the fridge that’s been there since who-knows-when. Not a
pretty sight, and definitely not edible. “Somethin’ stinks in the fridge
today, and it’s been rotting there all week. It could be liver cake or
wooly mammoth steak, or maybe I should take another peek…
arggggghhhhh!!!!!!!”
She Never Told Me She Was a Mime -
Gee, I wonder how that happened? This guy’s girlfriend is a full-time
mime, which he didn’t discover until a while into their relationship.
Now her shtick is ruining everything… “Carries ‘round a picture of
Marcel Marceau. Always was the quiet type but how was I to know?”
Harvey the Wonder Hamster
- Al’s very short tribute to his very short friend, the amazing, the
incredible, Harvey! Yay!!!!! There’s nothing in this song to indicate
that Al’s furry little buddy is particularly heroic or impressive (“he
doesn’t bite and he doesn’t squeal, he just runs around on his hamster
wheel”), but it’s pretty cute nonetheless. And for the brief time Al had
a Saturday morning kids’ show, everybody was able to get to know the
elusive Harvey a little bit better.
Waffle King - Um.
This guy really likes his waffles. He’s perfected what he believes to be
the perfect waffle, and now he’s just going to sit back and wait for
the accolades to come rushing in. “Can't you tell the universe revolves
around me? Don't you know you suckers owe me everything? And can't you
see that I'm the highest form of life that there could ever be?”
Bohemian Polka
- Why’d they have to put my least favorite song last? Well, at least
that means I can just skip the end of the album. I guess I just am not a
fan of polka, or not a fan of the songs Al is singing as if they were
polkas. This is just Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody sung super-fast. I don’t like it.
But I do like the album on the whole. As many laughs as Bad Hair Day. Pick up a copy and let the chortling ensue.
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