From the Washington Post:
“LOS ANGELES — One day last summer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, on break from “Hamilton,” stopped by neighbor Jimmy Fallon’s house in the Hamptons. They both love music and Fallon has a listening room in the basement, so it wasn’t long before they were downstairs sharing another passion: “Weird Al” Yankovic.
“I said, ‘Do you know “Polka Party!”?’ ” Fallon says. “He’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I know it word for word.’ ”
Fallon threw Yankovic’s 1986 record on the turntable, and the Broadway phenomenon and the late-night TV star sang along to an accordion-driven medley that covers 12 songs in three minutes, from Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” to Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach.”
“Picture Jimmy Fallon and I sitting in a basement laughing our asses off singing, ‘I’m gonna keep my baby, keep my baby, keep my baby,’ ” Miranda says.
“We were crying, laughing and singing,” Fallon says.
They’re not alone.
Yankovic has sold millions of albums, played 1,616 shows and outlasted so many of the stars he once spoofed. His most recent album, 2014’s “Mandatory Fun,” featured parodies of Iggy Azalea, Lorde and Pharrell Williams, a polka medley and his usual smattering of original songs. The album hit No. 1. At 57, he’s now readying a complete set of his 14 studio recordings, plus an album of bonus tracks. “Squeeze Box,” on sale through a PledgeMusic drive until the end of February, will naturally come in an accordion-shaped box. “Comedy recording and funny songs go back to the earliest days of the record industry,” says Barry Hansen, better known as Dr. Demento, the radio host who introduced Yankovic to the public 40 years ago. “But Al is unique. There’s nothing like him in the history of funny music.”
For Chris Hardwick — the comedian who created the Nerdist empire and hosts two game shows, “@midnight” and “The Wall” — Yankovic is more than a musical success story. He’s a triumph for all the oddballs and outsiders.”
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I remember during my “Jones Day phase” giving a lift in the family Suburban to one of my colleagues and his wife. As she thumbed her way through our shoe box of cassette tapes, his wife wondered aloud about a family whose musical tastes ran from Beethoven to “Weird Al” (although I actually think that Beethoven would have understood the connection). Yeah, we were pretty weird and nerdy.
My personal Weird Al favorite is “Girls Just Want to Have Lunch” (parodying, of course, Cyndi Lauper’s hit “Girls Just Want to Have Fun) from his 1985 smash hit album “Dare to be Stupid.” Here’s a link to the music video on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu6HJDYWf68
Happy listening/viewing!
Happy Friday!😎🍻
PWS
02/18/17