Monday, August 3, 2009

Long Songs: Weird Al Edition

Weird Al Yankovic: Albuquerque






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Recently, Weird Al Yankovic has taken to ending each of his albums with ridiculously long songs that are possibly even more absurd than his usual fare. If you have a half-hour or so to spare, I'd like to share those songs with you here.

The trend began with "Albuquerque" from 1999's Running with Scissors. The song is basically one large tangential rant involving rabid weasels, hermaphrodites, Leonard Nimoy's butt, and a lucky snorkel. All of these things are mentioned only to drive home the point that Al hates sauerkraut.

Did I mention that these songs might be a bit absurd?

Al followed that exercise with "Genius in France" from 2003's Poodle Hat. This time Al pays tribute to the late Frank Zappa with a track that jumps around from style to style with tons of dynamic shifts to an intentionally unsettling effect. Frank's son Dweezil Zappa plays the guitar intro to the song.

Finally... from 2006's Straight Outta Lynnwood... comes "Trapped in the Drive-Thru." If you've ever seen any of R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" videos, then this one needs no further explanation.

Kudos to any of you who can make it through all three of these.

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