Music / "Weird Al" Yankovic (Album)

It began with an accordion... a dream... A viewing of I Love Lucy... A love for ice cream... Wait, what?

"Weird Al" Yankovic is the self-titled debut album of "Weird Al" Yankovic, which was released in 1983 through Rock 'n' Roll Records. It features the hits "My Bologna", "Another One Rides the Bus", and "Ricky".

The album stands out for its Early-Installment Weirdness; the album features Al playing the accordion on every track, has a noticeably lower production value than his subsequent work, and is one of two albums of his to not feature a polka medley^note The other being 1988's Even Worse. The result was that the album would not be treated kindly by critics or sell particularly well, with Al mostly being considered at the time to be a One-Hit Wonder.

Tracklist:

Side One

1. "Ricky" (2:35)^note Parody of Toni Basil's "Mickey" using characters from I Love Lucy and featuring the melody of its TV theme song
2. "Gotta Boogie" (2:13)
3. "I Love Rocky Road" (2:35)^note Parody of Arrows' "I Love Rock & Roll", popularized by Joan Jett
4. "Buckingham Blues" (3:11)
5. "Happy Birthday" (2:26)
6. "Stop Draggin' My Car Around" (3:14)^note Parody of Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty's "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around"

Side Two

1. "My Bologna" (2:01)^note Parody of The Knack's "My Sharona"
2. "The Check's in the Mail" (3:12)
3. "Another One Rides the Bus" (2:35)^note Parody of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust"
4. "I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead" (3:37)
5. "Such a Groovy Guy" (3:00)
6. "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung" (1:55)

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Another one writes the tropes.

• Black Comedy:
  • In "Another One Rides the Bus", which is about Al being on a ridiculously overcrowded bus, he sings, "I haven't been in a crowd like this / since I went to see The Who!"^note He's referring to a particular Who concert in Cincinnati four years earlier in which a stampede of concertgoers trampled eleven people to death.
  • "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung" is a jaunty song about befriending a terminally ill man in an iron lung, whose "dialogue" is limited to the sound of the device pumping air.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: "I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead" is basically a Take That! to the bourgeois bohemian and yuppie lifestyles.
• British Teeth: Parodied in the "I Love Rocky Road" video when he sings "If I get fat and lose my teeth, that's fine with me" when his smile shows some of his teeth painted black to make it appear like he lost some of his teeth.
• Buses Are for Freaks: Invoked in "Another One Rides the Bus".
• The Cameo: At the 1:10 mark of the "I Love Rocky Road" video, Dr. Demento can be seen for a couple of seconds as the man behind the cash register.
• Car Song: "Stop Draggin' My Car Around".
• Casual Kink: Parodied in "Such a Groovy Guy":
  Oh and then I might decide to tie you up with dental floss
  I'll make you wear a harness and I'll show you who's the boss
• Deliberately Monochrome: The video for "Ricky", up until the end, when they switch to color for the I Love Lucy theme song melody.
• Design Student's Orgasm: The cover, drawn by Brazillian illustrator Rogerio In the Style of MAD Magazine, depicts Al sitting up in bed in a room full of different bits of junk which alludes to each individual song on the record as he imagines himself as an accordion-playing rock star. This detail is sadly lost on future releases which forced the image to be scaled down too far for the naked eye to pick up on.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: As his first album, this is evident. Every song features accordion as the lead instrument and Al sings everything with an exaggerated nasal voice, so the parodies aren't nearly as close to the original sonically as later parodies. It's also the only album to date to feature a guest vocalist (not counting Amanda Palmer's appearance on "First World Problems". It's also one of only three albums not to have any polka medley (Alapalooza has a polka cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" while Even Worse is the only other album to have no polka medley at all) and has only one style parody, "Happy Birthday" (Tonio K.). Meanwhile, half the songs on the album are completely original humorous songs, which later became a rarity for Al as he became more accustomed to writing style parodies.
• Everything Is an Instrument:
  • "Musical Mike" Kieffer's rhythmic hand-fart noises on "Stop Draggin' My Car Around," "Another One Rides the Bus" and "I Love Rocky Road."
  • John "Bermuda" Schwartz provides percussion on "Another One Rides the Bus" by banging on Al's accordion case.
  • Mr. Frump's iron lung breathing is supplied by the accordion's air release valve.
• First-World Problems: Parodied in "Buckingham Blues."
• Food Songs Are Funny: "I Love Rocky Road" and "My Bologna", in the beginning of a Weird Al tradition.
• Honest John's Dealership: The shady agent in "The Check's in the Mail", who gets threatened with a lawsuit for non-payment, giving such lines as "Who loves you, baby? Don't forget to read the fine print" and "Won't you sign on the dotted line, I'm gonna make your dreams come true, The check's in the mail, Would I lie to you?"
• In the Style of: "Happy Birthday" - Tonio K.
• Lethal Chef: Lucy is implied to be one in "Ricky". Ricky wants her to cook her casserole so she can give Fred and Ethel a fatal case of food poisoning.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Happy Birthday" keeps peppy all the way through, but hits serious dissonance at 26 seconds in and continues throughout the rest of the song.
  I guess you know the Earth is gonna crash into the sun
  But that's no reason why we shouldn't have a little fun
  So if you think it's scary, if it's more than you can take
  Just blow out the candles and have a piece of cake!
• Meat Versus Veggies: In "I'll be Mellow When I'm Dead," a pre-vegetarianism Weird Al proudly proclaims that he wants "no part of that vegetarian scene" and that he'd "rather have a Big Mac or a Jumbo Jack than all the bean sprouts in Japan."
• Medium Awareness: Lucy seems to be this in "Ricky":
  "Oh Ricky, what a pity you don't understand / That every day's a rerun and the laughter's always canned"
• Miniscule Rocking: "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung" is just under two minutes long.
• Mythology Gag: "Stop Draggin' My Car Around" mentions trading in a "'64 Plymouth". His family owned a 1964 Plymouth Belvedere, which inspired one of Al's first songs (and the first song of his played by Dr. Demento), "Belvedere Cruising".
• Never Say "Die": "Why don't you serve your casserole and make them disappear, Lucy?"
• Nose Nuggets: "Gotta Boogie". ("Gotta boogie on my finger and I can't shake it off!")
• Record Producer: Rick Derringer.
• Scary Teeth: Al in the latter end of the video for "I Love Rocky Road" with some of his teeth painted black to look like they're missing.
• Self-Titled Album: Fitting for his first official release.
• Shout-Out: The line "There's a mother in the ghetto with another mouth to feed" is a reference to the song "In the Ghetto" by Elvis Presley.
• Something Blues: "Buckingham Blues".
• Special Guest: Tress MacNeille does the voice of Lucy in "Ricky".
• Take That!:
  • Yuppies, especially on "I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead."
  • Dishonest slimeball scammers in "The Check's In The Mail".
• Toilet Humour: The loud belch at the end of the instrumental break on "My Bologna".
• Updated Re Release: A new version of "Happy Birthday" was recorded for the movie How to Be a Latin Lover. The scene including it got cut, but the new recording appeared on the Medium Rarities collection of Al's Squeezebox box set.
• Vader Breath: In "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung", Mr. Frump's responses are rather reminiscent of Darth Vader, with Mr. Frump making one last gasp when he dies.

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