A birthday wish...and an age that purely freaks me out

[thatcrazycajun]

"Weird Al" Yankovic is 48 years old today!! (His Wikipedia page gives his birth year as 1959.) Forty-eight. (Thanks to wormquartet for the tip, and to wolfette for correcting the total I misread off my Calculator app; damn decrepit eyesight!) Jeezam crickets, and I thought I was a geezer... Of course, when you realize he was making his first high-school and college recordings in the 1970s, this becomes less astonishing. (Ah, those great tiled-men's-bathroom acoustics...) And of course, that makes him only four years older than Your Humble Correspondent.

Anyhoo, happy birthday to one of the leading exponents of funny music in our time. What's your favorite Al tune? I can't pick just one—there's just too many gems from three decades of musical parody and strangeness: "White & Nerdy," "Another One Rides the Bus," "I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead," "I Love Rocky Road," "Hey Ricky," "Couch Potato" and on and on and on. (Don't you wish he'd re-do "Rocky Road," "My Bologna" and other parodies from his accordion-only days, now that he can afford to more precisely duplicate the originals' sound? I'm sorely tempted to do them myself with karaoke tracks if he doesn't.)

Comments

[wolfette]

1959 - 2007 makes him 48 years old today.

I knows this because I was 49 on my last birthday in August and I was born in 1958. I don't get the big 50 till next year.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I have many favourites, but if you forced me to pick just one, it would probably be Nature Trail to Hell.

The entire "Weird Al in 3D" is still my favourite single album of his.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Agreed; In 3-D has so much funny shit on it that it has to be in his top five at least, if not his best. "Midnight Star" is my favorite track off that one.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

If I hadn't picked Nature Trail, I'd have picked Midnight Star.

I also have always been overly fond Theme from Rocky XII, Gonna Buy Me A Condo, and That Boy Could Dance.

[mdlbear]

48 is a geezer?!

[ericavdg.livejournal.com]

Watch out who you're calling a geezer, young feller! I turn 51 in just a few days. Fifty was a good year (except for the headaches, and they're better now).

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Well, then, happy birthday to you and apologies for the inadvertent insult.

[wheezinggirl.livejournal.com]

This is an easy one for me, but I do like a lot of his music. My all time favorite Weird Al song is "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota".

"...greetings from the Twine Ball, wish you where here!...won't the folks back home be jealous..."

[mshollie.livejournal.com]

I can't think of any favorite Weird Al tunes...I like 'em all...but I have "Amish Paradise" and "White and Nerdy" on my MySpace page.

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

It's hard to pick a favorite. There are so many good ones. I guess if I had to, though, it would be "Bob." The parody of Dylan is just so spot-on, and the use of palindromes on the cue cards is genius. Being a computer geek, I'm also partial the "All About The Pentiums."

My wife's favorite is "Good Enough For Now" and my granddaughter loves "Albuquerque." She will occasionally come into the bedroom/office while I'm on the computer and pester me until I play Albuquerque for her.

By the way Al is younger than I am, but not by much. I still remember when he was just this kid who showed up on the Doctor Demento show from time to time and hadn't made it big with "Another One Rides The Bus" yet. Since then he's gone on to become a perfect antidote to musicians who take themselves too seriously -- and personally, I thnk rock 'n' roll (and country, and punk, and new wave, and rap, and the whole bit) need a good swift kick in the pants from time to time. It's amazing to think he's outlived some of the acts he's parodied by 20 years or more!

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Favorite original: "One More Minute"

Favorite parody at this moment: "Fat" (or "Amish Paradise")

I also loved those medleys.

Weird Al rocks

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

"Yoda" (Lola) and "You Don't Love Me Anymore" (original)