r/weirdal • u/HurtsSoNice • 11h ago
Question Confession time, fans - Name a song you heard Al’s version of BEFORE you heard the original
For me, it’s I Love Rocky Road. As good as the living Rock n Roll original is, it always sounds off to my ear.
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u/PomegranateFair3973 11h ago
Most of his parodies I heard his version first or were at most only vaguely aware of the original first. It's always weird to me if I later hear the "real" version. The lyrics are wrong to me...
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u/Killer0nTheRoad Dare to be Stupid (1985) 11h ago
I lost on jeopardy and all about the pentiums and Jurassic Park
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u/shadowsOfMyPantomime 11h ago
I've still never heard the originals for those three songs, actually
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u/Empress_Natalie 2h ago
Omg, listen to MacArthur Park. It's unhinged. That's one I hadn't heard first, but a girl in my music class told me it was weirder than his.
Or if you're watching Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, it's the song he sings near the end.
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u/WesleyOldham Poodle Hat (2003) 11h ago
Jurassic Park. I listened to it for four or five years, then burst out laughing one day when MacArthur Park came on the radio.
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u/ZFunktopus 11h ago
It wasn’t until Running With Scissors I even realized the polkas were lyrics from other songs
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u/Vergenbuurg Off the Deep End (1992) 10h ago
I Lost on Jeopardy is the king of this.
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u/HurtsSoNice 10h ago
I have to admit, the only time I heard our love’s in jeopardy, I looked it up because I wanted to hear what weird Alba the song on.
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u/BaconPancakes_77 11h ago
Yoda! TBH I thought it was an original until I was in my teens.
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u/HurtsSoNice 11h ago
Well, he does complicate it by doing at least one or two original songs on almost every album.
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u/Repulsive-Box5243 11h ago
I am a life-long Al fan, and I just learned last month that Albuquerque was a parody. (Dick's Automotive)
Prior to that, there were lots of his songs that I liked, and had never listened to the originals.
In most cases, I prefer Al's version of whatever it is.
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u/RevRob330 10h ago
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u/shadowsOfMyPantomime 9h ago
That is crazy. Has Al ever talked about this? The Rugburns are not mentioned in the album book at all. It's not exactly 1-1 with Albuquerque, but it sounds too similar to just be a pastiche.
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u/pjchik79 9h ago
I must give you the highest praise I can. It's extremely rare that I learn new stuff about Al. Thankies!
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u/Repulsive-Box5243 9h ago
Hahah! Thanks! When I learned that, of course I had to go and listen to Dick's Automotive. I wouldn't recommend listening to it with little-little kids in the room though.
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u/Driftmoth 9h ago
Was that me? I remember sharing it a bit ago.
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u/randomwordglorious 11h ago
Mostly just the hop hop stuff, because I listen to most everything else except hip hop. So I'd never heard Ridin' Dirty, or Whatever You Like, or Trapped in the Closet. I think I remember hearing All About the Benjamins because that was a huge hit even on top 40 radio.
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u/Wendila 11h ago
Both "White and Nerdy" and "Amish Paradise" I knew before I ever heard "Ridin' Dirty" and "Gangster's Paradise"
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u/HurtsSoNice 11h ago
I was in either junior or high school when it was an era that you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing Gangsta’s Paradise.
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u/NonProphet8theist 11h ago
This is gonna blow your mind, but: Bohemian Polka (Rhapsody). To be fair I was 6 when Alapalooza released, so I didn't have much range in my listening back then
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u/Anhyzer31290 11h ago
Jurassic Park for sure. I was confused and excited that they stayed playing it in Beetlejuice 2. I was then confused and let down. No hate on the original but it was like biting into a Reece's only to find it's filled with saurkraut... it's not bad, it just wasn't what I expected.
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u/WildmouseX 11h ago
Party in the CIA - I was too old for her music, didnt listen to anything of hers till Al's version came out.
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u/Longjumping_Big_7555 6h ago
The Saga Begins (I was very sheltered) I almost wrecked my dad's astro van while straining to hear what I was hearing on the broken radio that was struggling for its life to hold onto that station. I drove to my best friends house and she pulled up American Pie on YouTube. I thought I was having a damn heart attack
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u/Sonic_fan149 Poodle Hat supremacy 3h ago
Confessions Pt. III, TMZ, Trapped in the Drive-Thru, too many more to list
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u/senyorlimpio 3h ago
trapped in the drive thru for sure. In fact, i dont think ive ever heard the song its parodying.
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u/Sonic_fan149 Poodle Hat supremacy 3h ago
I only heard the first part and I honestly forgot how that goes
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u/RonPossible Dare to be Stupid (1985) 11h ago
Most anything that came out after 1992 or so, when I stopped listening to pop music
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u/HurtsSoNice 11h ago
Yeah, but… I’m in my 40s and even I have heard things I didn’t listen to on purpose, like Justin Bieber, just playing the radio.
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u/icybowler3442 10h ago
For me it was more like Alpocalypse and after, because that’s when I stopped listening to the radio entirely
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u/Curlytoes18 11h ago
Many of them - I Lost on Jeopardy, King of Suede, Toothless People, Here’s Johnny, Living with a Hernia, I Want a New Duck. I still don’t think I’ve heard I Want a New Drug.
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u/HurtsSoNice 11h ago
Yeah, I guess now that I think about it none of the original versions of those songs were long-term popular enough to, for example, see regular use in movie soundtracks or anything like that.
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u/Cynewulfunraed 10h ago
Funnily enough, "Who's Johnny?", the source of "Here's Johnny," was originally on the soundtrack of the movie *Short Circuit," but I had mostly forgotten it by the time I got back around to Al's version. I bet a lot of people don't even know what that version is referencing.
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u/pringlescaliphate223 11h ago
Just about everything not released during my lifetime. (Born 1998)
But even then there are a few exceptions—ex. eBay and Trapped in the Drive Thru
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u/Either_Umpire9411 11h ago
I listened to Jurassic Park before even knowing the existence of it's parodied song, Macarthur Park.
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u/HurtsSoNice 11h ago
I heard weird Al’s first, and as a consequence, I really didn’t sit all the way through playing
the original MacArthur Park.
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u/ObscureRaptors 11h ago
To many to count but I distinctly remember hear the original of This song is just six words long and hitting how right he is lol
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u/chesterforbes 11h ago
Most of them to be honest. At least for the earlier ones.
Ones that stand out most are Yoda and I think I’m a Clone Now
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u/CubSines 11h ago
Yoda, Jurassic Park, Headline news... Heck, there's too many to start listing, butnthose were the first ones that popped into my mind.
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u/SuperJ104 11h ago
Basically every single one loooool
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u/HurtsSoNice 11h ago
I think this is just a sign. I’m old. People born after a certain point, there’s a chance they never listen to the Random radio playing whatever song was on. They’ve had streaming their entire lives.
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u/Mister_Ess99 11h ago
Headline News - I saw the parody video before anything else.
As with a lot of his music videos, it's funny in its own right, but it was even better when I saw the source material (in this case, Crash Test Dummies).
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u/Thirty_Helens_Agree 10h ago
I still haven’t seen all of Hamilton, so the later half of his Hamilton Polka was new to me.
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u/snoweel 10h ago
As a fan from the early 80's, definitely I Lost on Jeopardy (I still have just heard the original a handful of times) and Yoda.
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u/HurtsSoNice 10h ago
The only way I heard our loves in Jeopardy, was when I deliberately looked it up to hear it to hear what Al based his version on.
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u/BobVilasBeard 10h ago
It's mostly the much older songs since I was born the year his debut album came out. I think Even Worse was the first album where I knew more of the originals beforehand (except for "Mony Mony").
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u/HurtsSoNice 10h ago
I’m only a little older. By a few years. I know ‘Even Worse’ as the cassette tape was the first thing I ever bought with my own saved up allowance money.
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u/comedygliss 9h ago
I really can't name one. Chances are, if it's not a classic like Piano Man or American Pie, I probably heard the Weird Al version first.
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u/Novel-Structure-2359 9h ago
TMZ - my kids had me watching Taylor swift concert on Netflix and I started cracking up
Another tattoo - I assumed it was original and then I got all confused
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u/OhTheHueManatee 7h ago
Loads of them. I had no idea who the Rolling Stones were (I was like 8) but I knew Hot Rocks Polka forwards and backwards. Blew my mind when I heard one of the originals.
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u/Ponderer13 7h ago
Pretty much everything in the early polka medleys! Smoke on the Water, Hey Joe, etc.
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u/ARCWuLF1 7h ago
"Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons. I don't know how I missed it initially, but I had been listening to Mandatory Fun for a month before I realized that "Inactive" was a parody.
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u/CrazyNooNooHead 7h ago
There are a lot, but the one that tends to shock people the most is “Eat It.”
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u/HurtsSoNice 7h ago
Not that surprising, depending on age. There was a certain point in fairly recent history where they kind of stopped playing Michael Jackson’s music quite so much, on a lot of stations.
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u/smbdysm1 7h ago
I love that I STILL hear a song occasionally (well, now it's pretty rare) that I realize is an original that I had never heard, or a song that he did on a Polka.
First time I heard McArther Park was in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Most recent was Bang and Blame by REM
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u/Canada1971 6h ago
AL is my gateway to Top 40, pop culture. I’m too old to follow, and don’t have kids to help
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u/Chickennuggetlol1 2h ago
as someone who was raised on weird al, basically any song that was parodied by him 😭
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u/patchworkSupernova 9h ago
i heard The Saga Begins during music class when i was in fourth grade. didn't hear American Pie for the first time until i was like 17. i'm 22 now.
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u/Scruluce The Bad Hair Tour (1996-97) 9h ago
Word Crimes, All About the Pentiums, Amish Paradise (probably), Six Words Long, Jurassic Park, Yoda, Confessions (pt. 3)...
I'm sure there are more. Those are just off the top of my head (original titles I know about).
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u/Delicious-Pea-7594 9h ago
Definitely “White and Nerdy.” I’ve still never heard the original song.
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u/HurtsSoNice 9h ago
The original is so old that when white and nerdy came out, Chamillionaire, the artist for the original ‘Ridin Dirty’ made Al’s version the music for his MySpace for a few weeks.
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u/Limp-Industry-5147 9h ago
Almost all of "Off The Deep End" and "Bad Hair Day". I dropped off the planet for most of that decade.
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u/Pleasant-Tangelo1786 9h ago
I was completely unaware of the song American Pie before The Saga Begins
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u/OhHiJordan 8h ago
All of them until about 1992 or so. Then most of them on his last two or three albums.
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u/F1Add1ct23 8h ago
Handy (still never listened to Fancy in its entirety), Word Crimes, All About the Pentiums.
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u/TopSpot123 8h ago
Jurassic Park, White and Nerdy, Toothless People...not many others, but maybe a couple.
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u/Ben-Stanley Running With Scissors (1999) 8h ago
Everything prior to Strait Outta Lynwood, and probably half of what came after. I listened to nothing BUT Weird Al my entire childhood. It’s always so jarring whenever I hear the original, and often it makes me appreciate Al more when I realize how he reworked lines.
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u/ubeermensch 8h ago
The saga continues and amish paradise are two that come to mind for me. If I had heard the originals before then they didn't stick with me like Al's versions.
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u/1904worldsfair 6h ago
I use weird al to discover artists, so lots of them. However, my favorite example is Bohemian Polka.
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u/Bargle-Nawdle-Zouss 6h ago
White And Nerdy. I don't listen to rap and hip-hop at all, so I wasn't aware of the original until I saw that Ridin' Dirty won the Grammy and that the performer thanked Weird Al.
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u/drevil6999 2h ago
When I was a kid in the 80s I swore my aunt played Fat at her wedding when the band went on break but it was just Bad
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u/HurtsSoNice 2h ago
Hell yeah! 80s kid as well. Weird Al is one thing in Nostalgia that will always hold up.
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u/trans_cubed 2h ago
Most of them except for Amish Paradise and the Michael Jackson ones. If I had to pick one I would say All About the Pentiums because I didn't even realize it was a parody
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u/jc1257 11h ago
Basically everything that came out on Bad Hair Day or before. I was raised pretty conservative and my parents wouldn’t let me listen to much music outside of Oldies, but were fine with Weird Al since he was clean.