Monday, July 21, 2014

The Art of the Parody

by Jennifer AlLee

I love a good parody, and in my opinion, the king of the pop music parody is Weird Al Yankovic. Al got his start back when he was a teenager, recording song parodies on cassette tapes and sending them to the Doctor Demento radio show. By 1982, he'd graduated college and had a recording contract. He's been going strong ever since.

One of the things I admire about Al is his integrity. Even though it's perfectly legal to parody a song without the writer's or performer's permission, Al never does that. He always makes sure to get the original performer's blessing before releasing a new song parody.

He's just dropped another album (aside: it's funny to me how we still call them albums, even though most music today is either digital or on CD) titled Mandatory Fun, and from what I've heard so far, it's all that and more. My favorite song is Word Crimes, which makes total sense as an author.

Here's the video. Enjoy! And remember, I'll C U l8ter is SUCH a crime!




JENNIFER ALLEE was born in Hollywood, California, and spent her first ten years living above a mortuary one block away from the famous intersection of Hollywood & Vine. Now she lives in the grace-filled city of Las Vegas, which just goes to prove she’s been blessed with a unique life. When she’s not busy spinning tales, she enjoys playing games with friends, attending live theater and movies, and singing at the top of her lungs to whatever happens to be playing on the car radio. Although she’s thrilled to be living out her lifelong dream of being a novelist, she considers raising her son to be her greatest creative accomplishment. She's a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Romance Writers of America, Christian Authors Network, and the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance. Her novels include The Pastor’s WifeThe Mother Road, A Wild Goose Chase Christmas and the upcoming Last Family Standing (9/15) from Abingdon Press; Diamond in the Rough, Vanishing Act, and Curtain Call from Whitaker House and co-written with Lisa Karon Richardson; and the novella Comfort and Joy in the Christmas anthology, Mistletoe Memories from Barbour.

6 comments:

  1. weird Al is definitely a wonderful wordsmith. i've long been a fan of his parodies. the video is very funny. i'm not sure i could still diagram a sentence properly though...

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    Replies
    1. Hi there DebH. I agree with you there. I think Beat It was the first one to catch my attention, but once caught, it stayed.

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  2. He cracks me up... to this day I can't listen to Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" without laughing out loud thinking of Weird Al's parody version, "Constipated." :)
    And three different friends sent me links to the Word Crimes video... do you think they're trying to tell me something?

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  3. Ha! Love it! This version is why better than the original.

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  4. I agree, Lisa. This is so much more fun that the original, which is quite offensive when you listen to the words and consider their meaning. If I'm going to have an ear worm, I'd much rather it be Weird Al's version.

    Thanks, Jen. You've done well to start the week this way. :)

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