Alfred “Weird Al” Yankovic is perhaps the most famous American parodist of all time. He is known for taking the music of the original work he’s parodying and transposing new lyrics into the melody. He has become renowned throughout his career for the quality of his songs, as well as his staunch refusal to release a song unless he gets explicit permission from the artist who he’s parodying. With all the creative songs he has written, it can be tough to choose just five songs, but the list calls for me to do so. Without further ado, here are the top 5 best Weird Al songs of all time, ranked!
5. “Smells Like Nirvana” (Parodied Song: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” – Nirvana)
During a time when Weird Al was (in)famous for recording parodies involving food, he broke with the pattern to instead lampoon the garbled singing voice of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. At one point, Yankovic literally has marbles in his mouth as he bemoans that no one knows what the lyrics to the song are. The set for the music video is almost perfectly recreated from the set of the music video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, which only adds to the charm.
4. “Eat It” (Parodied Song: “Beat It” – Michael Jackson)
This song kickstarted the trend of Weird Al writing parodies involving food and it’s not very hard to see why. Using the melody for Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”…well, beat by beat, it evokes colorful imagery as it lists a plethora of foods. It’s hard to pick a song that better represents who Weird Al is with this one, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t better ones ahead.
3. “Like a Surgeon” (Parodied Song: “Like a Virgin” – Madonna)
In this parody, the patient is not only being “touched for the very first time”, but also “cut for the very first time”, by virtue of being under the knife of Weird Al’s character. They might be in for a tough time as he only “finally made it through med school”. Either way, few others could make a song about medical malpractice as delightfully catchy as Weird Al did, which elevates this song to the number 3 spot.
2. “The Saga Begins” (Parodied Song: “American Pie” – Don Mclean)
Serving as a tie-in tune to the contentious Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, this parody of Don Mclean’s recount of how “the day the music died” instead turns into a recount of how “we met this boy”. Of course, said boy turns out to be “this here Anakin guy”, who “may be Vader someday later but is now a small fry.” The song retells the story of the first prequel in typical Weird Al fashion, until Weird Al, who is in character as Obi-Wan Kenobi, decides to train Anakin himself. Nothing retells a Star Wars story than Don Mclean melodies, evidently.
1. “Amish Paradise” (Parodied Song: “Gangster’s Paradise” – Coolio)
If you aren’t aware of the controversy surrounding this song, you’ve probably “been spending most your life livin’ in an Amish paradise”. Song lyric reference aside, this track is infamous for being the center of allegations that Weird Al did not obtain original artist Coolio’s permission to parody his song. Controversy aside, this parody does a good job of showing the wild, er mild side of the titular Mennonites.