Beer'd Al Anthology: The Great Poodle Hat Incident

We’re taking a trip back in time—way back to 2021—for a very special re-release! This isn’t just any episode of Beer’d Al. It’s the one where Russ and Lauren have their very first conversation. Like… ever.

And what better album to bond over than "Weird Al" Yankovic’s delightfully wacky Poodle Hat? Expect laughter, awkward charm, a few "getting to know you" moments, and of course, plenty of Weird Al love. So crack open a beer, cue up Poodle Hat, and relive the magic of the moment it all began. 🍻🐩🎩

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/beer-d-al-podcast--5439475/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hello everybody, and welcome to the nostalgia portion of the
Beer Al Podcast podcast about two of the greatest things
in the world, Beer and weird Al. As promised, you know,
we wrapped up our Polka party party two weeks ago
and we are going to get into even worse in
the not too distant future. But me being human, I

(00:55):
needed a little bit of a break from recording new things,
and so I figured weird now is a great time
to revisit some of my favorite things from the past.
And one of my favorite things from the past to
come up about, you know, to come about because of
this show is the fact that you know Russ is
here and you are in for a treat with this

(01:18):
because one of the things that my husband and I
tell people all the time is that our very first
conversation is recorded and it's out there for the world
to hear. And that very first conversation hit the magical
airwaves of the beard Al Podcast in mid February of
twenty twenty one. And now we are here, we are married,

(01:42):
we have a lovely house, and this is the very
first conversation that we had and it's about weird Al's
two thousand and three masterpiece album poodle Hat. So you know,
sit back, relax and enjoy this little trip down memory lane.
And I will tell you that ad breaks weren't baked

(02:03):
into the show at the time, so they're gonna pop up.
They may be a little jarring. I apologize, but you
know again, what can you do. You got to pay
the Williams right, all right, So without further ado, enjoy.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
I want to welcome everybody to a very special episode
of the beard Al Podcast. I'm Lauren and I'm always here.
My brother is is, like I usually say, probably taking
care of his small child, who you get to hear
on some of our episodes now because she can talk.
But on these very special episodes I get to have
very special people on. And today I am joined by

(03:14):
Russ from the Infectious Groove podcast. Hey Russ, how are you? Hey?

Speaker 2 (03:18):
I am doing wonderful. I'm a I'm excited to be here,
and b I'm super excited to discuss this particular album.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm just going to say it right
off the bat. We are talking poodle Hat today. That's right,
poodle Hat from two thousand and three. So get ready
for some early aughts magic because that's what we're hitting
up today. So before we get into poodle hat, I
want to give you an opportunity right at the beginning
to plug all of your stuff. Who are you, where

(03:47):
are you from? What do you do?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I am Russ, as you mentioned, from the Infectious Groove podcast,
and I've kind of done enough podcast guest spots now
to where I can get this down to a science.
It's the twenty minutes it was originally. So the two
easiest ways for people to check us out is either
to go to Infectious groovepodcast dot com or go to
YouTube dot com slash Infectious Groove Podcast. Both are a

(04:14):
little different content. The podcast itself, myself, my best friend Michelle,
and her boyfriend Kyle, do roundtable discussions on everything to
do with music every week. It's not one particular artist.
We always share what we're listening to. We always talk
about current issues and classic topics, topics and things like that.
That's what's on the audio podcast. The YouTube channel is

(04:37):
more focused on my vinyl collection that I've had for
I don't know, over a decade, and I have a
mass quite a few rare pressings, and not just rare pressings,
but special pressings too, So every Thursday I put out
a new video of like, you know, here's a rare
pressing that many people maybe haven't seen, or like the
one I have coming out tomorrow is about a Pink

(05:01):
Floyd original pressing versus like the Super Deluxe, whether you
should buy one or the other, you know, yeah, that
type of thing. And then I do own the fifteen
LP weird Al Squeezebox. I haven't shot a video on
that yet because I'm kind of afraid that it's going
to be like a forty five minute video of you know,
of me just gushing about every single weird Al album.

(05:21):
But I will. I will find a way to work
at it eventually. So Infectious Group podcast dot com YouTube
dot com slash Infectious Groove.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's us, Yes, excellent, very good. Yeah you did get
that down to a nice, tidy little nugget there. I
appreciate that. Before and again before we jump in completely
to poodle Hat, since this is the beard Al Podcast,
I just want you all to know that you'll figure
out why this beer is appropriate for me to have
right now talking about this album. I'm drinking a sour

(05:53):
Gosa style a beer called trash Can Punch from nine
oh three Brewers and they are in Sherman, Texas. So
once again it's trash can punch. And as we get
into Poodle Hat, I think you'll understand why trash can
is appropriate. It's a good beer. I've had it. It's nice,
it's sour. If you don't like sours, you won't like it.

(06:15):
If you do like sours, you'll say, hey, this is
a sour. But if like a sour had a baby
with a Hawaiian punch, what's the ABV on it? Six
point two? It's good. It's not like there was one
time I had. I had a guest on the show
talking about an album just like you are now. It

(06:36):
was Mike from the Boozy Bracketology podcast. He was on
talking about off the Deep End with me and I
had a sour and it was called Hawaiian Shirt Party
and it was like a tropical coconuty sort of sour
kind of deal, and I was enjoying it. I was
having a really good time. But nowhere on the can
did it say what the ABV was. And then we're

(06:57):
getting through the conversation and I'm like, I looked it up.
The beer was like, well over nine percent. I said, oh,
that makes sense. That makes sense for me now, So anyway,
let's jump into poodle Hat. Poodle Hat, of course, like

(07:17):
I said at the beginning, it is weird Al's it's
his eleventh studio album and it came out in the
Year of Our Lord two thousand and three. And for
those of you keeping score at home, I have been
wearing a weird Al shirt every day so far in
twenty twenty one. So today I am actually wearing the
shirt that I got on the tour in support of

(07:39):
poodle Hat back in two thousand and three. So it's
a good shirt. It's very orange, not my usual color,
but I'm wearing it today to talk about poodle Hat.
So we're gonna go through this song by song as
best we can and sort of see what happens. Now.

(08:01):
Poodle Hat opens up with couch Potato, which of course
is a parody of Lose Yourself by Eminem. So since
you are my guest, I'm gonna let you share your
initial thoughts about.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
So it's funny. This is one of my favorite Weird
Al albums, and I think one of the most insanely
underrated records he's done. But for the first couple of
tracks here. It's gonna sure sound like it's not one
of my favorites. There's a lot I don't like about
couch Potato. To be honest, I do not think it
should have been the first single off the record at all.

(08:37):
As we all know, once weird Al has a single
come out and it either makes a big splash or
it doesn't, the record label has no idea what to
do with him after that, so nothing None of the
rest of the Bronians of this record even had a
chance because this single came out and it didn't really
make the big splash that weird Al's. No, it wasn't
a white nerdy, it wasn't a smell like it smells
like Nirvana. My personal problems with it is number one.

(09:01):
I think it's one of the worst titled weirdl songs
that there's ever been. Now, he couldn't just call it
lose yourself again, you know, which is what he says,
and usually he'll do it after his whatever. He changes
the lyric two in the chorus and so I get that.
And then also surprising for weird Al, the rhyme schemes

(09:23):
really aren't that good. They don't match up to Eminem's
all that much until the third verse. The third verse
is fire like the third verses exactly like emineh yeah, yeah,
so yeah, that's that's such a bummer that this record
starts with this song for me, because it's just not
a highlight.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, you know. And I think in a world where
Eminem had let weirdl do the video that weird Al
wanted to do for Couch Potato, we may be talking
about it differently because then we'd have that image in
our minds because you're right, absolutely, like, sonically, this song
doesn't do it for you, but a lot of weird

(10:00):
Al's biggest hits have kind of been that perfect storm
between what you hear and what you've seen in the video.
And so I think this is part of it. I
mean Eminem not quote unquote allowing weird Al to do
the video like weird All could have made the video
like he could have. He was just too nice to
do it when Eminem said, yo, I really don't want

(10:23):
you to do it.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah. I am constantly explaining that to people all the time,
that weird Alt can do whatever he wants legally, but
he's such a nice guy. That he doesn't, and I
totally agree. This is one of those things that well,
like not to get too far off track, but think
of how much success he could have had with as
many different Beatles things as he wanted to do, or

(10:46):
as many different Prints things as he wanted to do.
But he carved his own path, and you know, does
it the right way or the nice way? If not
the right way? And then there's people like us out
there who do appreciate the whole record regardless, So it's
still a weak for him.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Absolutely, it's still a win. Yeah. I mean, like I said,
I saw this tour and obviously, you know, as the
lead single from the album, I think this might have
been the one tour that Weird All actually performed this
song Han and you know, he came out with the
beanie and the hoodie and you know he kind of
sulked around the stage doing the song and I could

(11:25):
even tell. I was like, he's not he's not happy
about this at all.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
So, you know, given that we don't have to spend
that much more time on couch Potato.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
I was gonna say, it's almost almost all uphill from
here for me. There's very little I don't like from
here out.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, because right after Couch Potato comes arguably one of
the most brilliant weird Al songs ever, Right that would
Hardware Store.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, Hardware Store is one of those ones that I
think is uh not that he's out for this, but
I think, like that would be my own negative on
this track is that I think it would be such
a knee jerk for someone who may have heard of
him because of Couch Potato and then they come out
of that track into this and they're like, holy cow. However,
it's also a crash course, and now.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
He does that all the time. I think I've said,
oh yeah, yeah. Actually, in we talked about Pancreas, and
one of the things I note is on the album
Straight out of Linwood, Pancreas comes right after White Nerdy,
which is that same jarring like you get this one
thing right into something completely different, right, Yeah?

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Absolutely. And I know at least two of my friends
who became like stone cold weird Al fans because of
the jarring difference between fat and stuck in a closet
with Vana White, Like they literally were like, what is
this And that was the only reason they stuck with
the record was that it was so different. I know
of two different people like that. So this is this

(12:57):
is another example of that.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah, that's his thing. But man, this song is crazy.
It's absolutely crazy. It's one that he has never I
don't believe he's ever done it live because I don't
believe any human could actually do this song live.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it would have to be like
way slowed down or heavy use of tapes and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, it's so fast. It's so fast. It reminds me.
I have like this, this mental connection with this song
and like a ram's the end of the world as
we know it. The only line that I can like
confidently sing along with is Leonard Bernstein.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
I'm not kidding you. My wife and I just drove
across the state Monday morning and I had I Heart
eighties on and they play that and of course, like
you know, my wife and I under our breath that's
the only you know, Leonard Bernstein, that's the only thing
anybody does.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yep, that's it. That's it. And and much like that
with hardware story, the only thing I can confidently do
is automatic circumcisers. And I don't know, I mean, it's
just because he hits it in such a way, or
because automatic circumcisers is such a unusual image to get

(14:15):
in your brain. I'm not sure, but it's infact if
you haven't heard the song Hardware Store, that gives you
an idea of how fast things go, because I'm pretty
good at, you know, holding lyrics in my brain, but
I can't hold a lot of this in my brain.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Oh right, yeah, yep, yeah, it's It's one of those
tracks too, where you get a full appreciation of what
a linguist, where all is like I mean, he doesn't
just spout nonsense. It's all everything that he talks about
makes sense in the context that he's talking about it,
and he's had stuff and this is one of them

(14:50):
too where I've had to like look up what he's
talking about, and then it's even funnier after I learned
whatever the phrase is or whatever. Yeah, yeah, so yeah,
Hardware are definitely a big swing up for the album from.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
The first song, A big swing up, and it's interesting, interestingly,
one of the few weird Al originals that's not a
style parody or pastiche of another artist. This is just
a straight up like original weird Al song. Which, for
better or worse, it gives you a glimpse into what's

(15:23):
inside the man's head, because if he were to just
put something out that was purely him, that's what it would.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Be, right. Yeah, for all the people going, why doesn't
he do an album of originals, Well, do you like
Hardware Store?

Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah? Yeah, do you like Hardware Store? Do you like UAHF?
Well that's what it would be.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah. You know, when UHF came out, I totally that
was the one dime in my life where I was like, man,
I wish he'd do an album originals because I love
that song so much and it's got such a great
hook and everything. I thought for sure, like I was like, man,
I really wish he would be. But then everything that
came after UHF, I'm totally fine with two.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah. Yeah, he knows what he's doing. He knows what
he's doing, and so we can't we can't really question
question the genius at work. So then we go from
Hardware Store again into something completely different with the Trash Day,
which is a parody of hout in Hair by Nelly.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
And my only complaint with this song is I again
with the title, I don't know why this isn't just
called rotten here because it would because for me to
the casual I know a lot of what I call
very casual al fans, and they will do the thing
with I'll look at the back of the CD and
if they don't get the connection to something, they don't

(16:41):
really get it. And there's a few others on here
like uh that we'll get you later, oh to a superhero,
like you're not just gonna call that spider Man instead
a piano man because people aren't gonna make that connection either.
Complicated song stuff like that. But like, it puzzles me
why this song is not called just called rotten hair.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, yeah, you're right. I have never thought about that,
to be honest with you. And seriously, this is one
of those weird awl songs that I forget about a
lot of the times until it pops up on one
of my playlists or I'm listening to poodle Hat straight
through and then I was like, oh, yeah, that song exists.
I can I feel that song just a little bit

(17:21):
because it was just, you know, that day before trash Day.
Everything's getting kind of asked saying, you know what, I
think I can let it go another week, and I'm
that kind of person that's like, I am just too
lazy to drag that can out to the curb, so
I think I can let it go.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
This for me, too, is for anybody who heard my
complaints about the rhyme schemes and couch Potato, this is
the opposite of that. Everything on this is so cleverly
done with everything on it hits the original things that
the hooks on, all of the ends of the lines
that made Nellie's hit catchy, and then but it's all

(18:01):
done perfectly all about trash day.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, yeah, I guess, you know, I guess thinking, you know,
looking back of course, where our vision is twenty twenty.
If he had to pick between this and Couch Potato
to be the lead single for the album, this probably
would have made more sense.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
I have another one that I think would have been
the I think the song we'll get to it wait later.
But there's another song that I think would have been
the perfect lead single.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
I know exactly what you're talking about, and ooh, so
people keep listening.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
It is it is the one that we're both thinking of.
Is criminal that it's not one of the weird Aw's
biggest hits.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, apparently he had a reason for that, which we
can get to in a little bit as well. But
for those of you who have been keeping score, this
song is the reason why I am drinking trash Can
Punch because I guess we'll just we'll just keep trucking
through this because uh, the party at the leper Colony.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Oh really, I love it.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
No, I love it too. But you know who doesn't
love this song?

Speaker 2 (19:14):
I just found out about that. And I was in
the YouTube wormhole the other day and I saw a
live version of it from the I'll.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Say it wrong with the self Indulgent Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, advised, which I saw. I saw that too.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
I saw that tour. I saw him do this song
on that tour. Oh wow, yeah, And I heard him
say what you're going to say?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
He said, yeah, he just well, I'm not quote verba
verbatim rather, but he just went on about how what
really wasn't that good of a song? And this was
proof that they're going to do any song if they're
going to do this this song. And I'll just tell
you my notes. My first thing is and I have
periods after every one of these words, and they're all
typed in caps, so any great puns, the puns in

(20:03):
this song are. I personally, I think this is one
of the most underrated weird el originals that there is.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, come on, who's that? Like,
who's in the hot tub?

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Oh yeah, Wait a minute, it looks lack stew I mean,
just come on. The one that kills me just well,
the whole song makes me giggle uncomfortably, the line where
he says a girl, no, don't go to pieces on me.
Then she cried her eyes out literally. I mean, you

(20:38):
know it and it's even and it's and it's done too.
I mean it's a weird al original, but it is
a style parody in that it's a generic hand jive
that was like, you know, popular in the in the
early and mid fifties and uh to me again, it's
like trigger happy where he you would never hear a
hand jive about any thing close to something bad happening

(21:02):
to people. And to me that when I listen to
weird aw songs like that comes into play.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, something's gonna happen to somebody sowen.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, and with like you know that comes into play
that like you take this thing that would always be
such a positive, upbeat thing. In all the lyrics are
just about awful things happening now.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, but awful things are happening in a really funny,
funny way. And in this case it's puns. And I mean,
I could go I'm not going to, but I could
go off forever about puns because puns are my Puns
are my favorite type of humor. I think I just
love a good pun. Like you throw a good pun

(21:41):
at me. I'm like, all right, you are my kind
of people. And this song, just like you said, they're
all such good puns. You know, let's give them a hand.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
I mean, just Ray like and you realize the level
he's playing at right at the beginning when he says
when he mentioned they're going to the party, and he says,
it won't cost you an arm and a leg, you know,
like Ray at the top. It's just like like the
very first time I heard it, I was like, Okay,
we're going to play at this level the whole song,
and then it keeps getting better like all the like
you said, I totally forgot about that line. The uh,

(22:13):
there's a guy in the hottub I don't know who.
Wait a minute, it looks like step, like, come on,
I think a lot of people wouldn't even think deeply
into that line, and then when you do, you're like,
oh my lord.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, it's it's great. And I hate that he's like
embarrassed by it or doesn't like it or what have you.
And actually, interestingly, Nathan Rabin, who wrote the book The
Weird Accordion to Al, who's actually he's been on our
show and we didn't talk about this song in particular,
but his passage in that book about this song is

(22:50):
basically like this song would make more sense earlier in
Al's career, like on in three D or even Dare
to be Stupid, But at this point in the early
two two thousands, like Al should be past this.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
But no, I couldn't disagree more. And uh, and personally,
I think we should start the hashtag Justice for Party
at the Leber Colony because.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
I might do that. I might do that.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
This is just it's I just it's I think it's brilliant.
Let me put it this way, if I ever became
independently wealthy and had the money to do like a
private Weird Al concert with like me and ten of
my friends, this would absolutely be like, I would pay
him an extra ten grand if he didn't want to
do this song.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, so it would cost you an arm life.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
It actually would cost me.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
And I were like, yeah, this song is really good.
And I mean seriously, if you had like an outside
pool party with weird out, you could have a hot
tub with like those fake Halloween body parts kind of
sitting in it, like oh it's stop.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yep. He might not appreciate it, but I'm sure he'd
like the money though, right.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
I mean, you know, take the money man. Oh my god.
We could talk forever about this.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
I was so upset when You're like, when I was
first looking at you, you were I thought, oh, no,
she doesn't like this song. And now I like all
these notes about how I love this song. No I do.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Al doesn't. But this is one of those cases when
AL is wrong.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
I think it's the only known case in the history
of the world where AL was wrong.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
That's true that yeah, you know what, You're probably right.
I'm just kind of like, thinking.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Back, that's probably there's an exception to every rule, and
I'm okay with party in the leper Colony being the exception.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yes, as I'm just kind of looking at this track
list as we're going through it. I mean, I know
this track list, but it's one of those things to
see it in front of you. And you're right, it
does just keep getting better because now we're getting into
Angry White Boy Polka. This is a good Poka.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. You know what's weird? This is
obviously I host a music podcast. I've been into music
deeply my whole life. This is one of the only
polkas that when it came out, I didn't know the
greater majority of the material in it. Oh really yeah,
Like I knew System of a Down and uh, maybe

(25:13):
one other, but like, I just was not into that
genre of rock like at all. And there was a
lot of songs that I was like, I don't know
this one. I don't know this one. I mean, don't
get me wrong, it's still great Polka. And I've heard,
like what it's so funny the weird al effect, Like
if I'm out of a casino or you know, on

(25:34):
vacation or something and I hear one of those songs,
I'll be like, oh, that's the one from uh Angry
by Polka, and I'm sure the band would be like no,
that's actually our hit. You know. I'd be like, no, no, no,
this is an angry white boy polka, you know, but
yeah that this is one of the only times that
that's happened with one of his polkas. Like growing up,
every time there was a polka, I would always be like,

(25:54):
I would know the know the as soon as he
switched over to the next song, I would know the
original and have you know with how it was done,
you know, the the clanking noise or the whatever he
threw into it. And this was one of the very
first times that the greater majority of them I was like,
I don't know this. I don't know this. I don't
know this.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
Uh yeah, you see, all right, it depends on kind
of where it hit you in life, because this was
near This was like my senior year of high school.
So yeah, so this was you know, I had kind
of to two factions of friends. The friends were that
were still into like the poppy stuff and the friends

(26:33):
that were into the the angry white boy stuff. And
so I mean this was that, uh, that era in
music where bands kept coming out with the band names
because you have the vines, the hives, the white stripes,
the Strokes and it was like a whole the thing
that was that was happening again. So I I know

(26:56):
everything on this, Like the Strokes were my jam at
the time.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
So there's a friend of mine who brought over I
think the first Strokes record to my Friday night music
thing and exactly that happened to where we put it
on and I was like, oh, this is from the
Weird Elbow and he was like, it might be from that,
but it's also from the Strokes, and I was.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Like, oh yeah, sorry, yeah, oopsie Daisy. Yeah, no, the
Strokes are great. You're right. I don't really like most
of the music in this polka, but I recognize most
of music in this polka, and I think most of
the songs are better in this poka than they are
outside the polka.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree. Like when I
hear the originals, I'm always like, uh, this was better
in the polka, and I do I love this polka,
Like I there's He's got a couple of pocas that
I if I never heard him again, I wouldn't be
like heartbroken, but this one. I will put this on,
you know, like just to listen to it.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
I feel like this this particular little time frame, like
I'm gonna say Bad Hair Day through poodle Hat. So
those three albums, Bad hair Day, Running with Scissors, and
Poodle Hat three of the best polkas in my mind, three,
three of the most like go back to listen to
it polkas.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
Let me tell you how much of an impact. I
can't think of the name of the polka that's on it, said,
the alternative poka is on Bad hair Day. Okay, so whenever,
because I listened to a whole lot of Casey case
I'm in the iHeart Radios iHeart eighties stations on just
the iHeart Radio app. Every single time Rock the Cradle starts,
I get mad that it's the actual song and not

(28:40):
the alternative poka.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Like, oh no, Rock the Cradle is from the polka
that's on Off the Deep Bend.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Okay, that's what I'm thinking of them.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah yeah, Rock the Cradle, that's oh shit.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
But when it doesn't, when it gets through the riff
twice and it doesn't go woom, I get mad. Yeah,
I get real mad that it doesn't switch over to that.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Oh yeah, no, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
But yeah, I totally agree that run of that run
of Polka's is just perfect. I mean it's it's like again,
it's one of those things where if I was trying
to convince someone that there's more to l than the
lead single that they always hear, that, I would play
one of those easily.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Oh heck yeah, heck yeah that. I mean, it's a solid,
solid Polka. The Polka off of Up Your Deep End,
Off the Deep End is Polka your eyes.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Out out, that's right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
It's That's the problem with the polkas too, is I
can know what album missed off of, but sometimes the
names of the polkas are not as like they're not
as easy to pull unless it's like a polka defining.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Name, right Yeah, yeah, yeah, like this or.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
The alternative Polka or what have you. Like, No, that's
what I call Polka. We don't have to go through
all of this on the polk because I just do
need to say that the ball with a ba the
kid rock bit on this Polka always makes me laugh.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, and that's one of the ones that I knew.
I mean, it's a Detroit thing. It's like you couldn't
go you couldn't Breathe air in Detroit around that time
without people being like, have you heard about kid Rock? Yes,
I've heard about kid Rock. Yes, yes I've heard, and
I'm not a fan. What you're from Detroit? Yeah, I know,
you know, but but I that is the only instance
in which I want to hear the song is in.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
This Polka agreed? Agreed? Yeah, Oh my god, So we
can move on from this Polka too. Oh I want
to be your lover.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
So this is my least favorite song on the record,
real yeah, And I don't hate it. I just don't.
There's very few weird al songs Polka's original style parodies
that I I will skip, and there's nothing that keeps

(31:05):
me listening to the song when it comes on. It's
the only song, including consp Potato, this is the only
song on the record where I'm like, I could just
skip this.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Probably I have a song that I skip on this album,
but it's not this song.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Oh no, which one?

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Well, we haven't gotten to it yet. I know, I know,
and I have my reasons. But this particular song I
enjoy because I think in spite of the way it
is on the album, but because of how he did
it live and I've seen him do it live many

(31:43):
times because before this album came out, and at some
points after he kind of flip flaps. Now, but he
always has one song where he goes out into the
audience and he picks an eye ol and it's like
a sexy weird al song. If there is a sexy
weird house song, but it's a sexy weird how song
where he kind of flirts with the ladies. And this

(32:08):
was that song for this album. So this is the
one where he'd basically be in a pimp outfit and
he would go and he weird all grind like grinded
very close to women's faces whilst performing this song live,
like I want to be your beef buried.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
And I was like, I don't know if you're making
this better for me.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
I'm just saying, like, in the context of the entire concert,
it was hilarious. Like the way he did it was
funny because you could tell he wasn't like serious. It
was funny to be there and see you know. But
before that that go out into the concert song was
one More Minute, which I love. I love the song

(32:54):
one More Minute, And I was a little mad because
the first two times I saw weird Al his go
out in the song in the crowd song was one
more minute and then it switched to want to be
Your Lover, and so he didn't do one more minute,
and I was like, no, where's my song? I love
that song? Why? But you know, and then he started

(33:15):
kind of doing both or one or the other, and
it is what it is. But this is another one
of those songs, songs that's full of uh. I just
did it to myself. It's one of those songs. But
it's one of those songs that is full of word play.
But this is the only time that weird Al's word

(33:36):
play is dirty.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah. And listening to the album again the other day
for the first time in a long time, like I
literally I had that thought of like I could just
skip the song, and then I was like, well, no,
you're doing the show. You gotta listen to the song.
And there were a few things that made me clutch
my pearls at the at the thing in the in
the car. I was like, that's different for Al.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah, yeah, you know, so you this is this the
album We're weird Out became a man.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Very very very possible.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, Like he just kind of realized, you know what,
like I am in my forties now, I can do
what I want. Yeah, and just just do it, because
I believe he performed this song on Conan back in
the day and kind of did the whole thing with
the song in the audience on the Conan O'Brien show.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
I'm certain it's on YouTube. I'll have to go together.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
I yeah, it's definitely on YouTube, and it is something
It is something.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
To watch, and it might be one of those things
where I don't think I've ever seen him do it,
because I would remember that and it might be one
of those things where if he does in the future,
the presentation at the concert might make it better for me.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, I don't know if he would do it, because
I mean again, I think because of the reception of
this album, he doesn't do a whole lot off of it.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, if I if I ever become independently wealthy, I
guess I'll just have him do the whole record front
to back then.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, you know that would be something that would be
something like you know how he's not he hasn't put
anything out lately, but it would be kind of fun
for AW to do, just like individual albums live, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
I would be every other artist out there does it,
and we just we just briefly mentioned this on our
show the other day, But there are a lot of
artists who shouldn't be doing their full albums front to
back like and you know, there are a lot of
artists who very rightfully should be as well. But I
would go to that tour all day long. If I'll
just started doing individual albums front to back.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, I wouldn't even care which one I went to.
I would be like, Okay, put me in the lottery.
I don't care which album it is you want.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
I don't think yeah, I think Polka Party would be
like my least favorite. But I'd still get to hear
Living with Hernia, and that would and.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Here's Johnny Yeah, and Dogg Eat Dog.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah. And the other day again, because of the whole
Casey Kaseon thing that's on iHeartRadio out of nowhere, we
happened to hear Who's Johnny, which you never hear ever,
And of course I had to talk over the entire
song and tell everyone in the room about how much
better the weird al.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Version is, because it is it just is.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
That was one of those things not to derail too much,
But that was one of those things where the original
just wasn't a big enough hit to make an impact,
you know, Like if he was going to have an
impact with a DeBarge parody, Rhythm of the Night would
have been a much better thing. But I think Rhythm
of the Night was already like at least a year
or two old at that point, and they probably figured

(36:42):
Here's Johnny was going to be a big hit. It
was a follow up to a big hit, it was
attached to a movie and that. But the weird else,
the Ed McMahon bit in the middle of that, I
can't hear the original without doing that myself.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yeah, you're right, You're absolutely right. I love it. A
Complicated Song is a parody of Complicated by Canadian pop
princess Avril.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Levine, the real one before they replaced her. Right, No,
there's a whole we did a whole episode about urban legends,
and there's an urban legend that people actually believe. Yeah,
that the real one passed away and we all know
the uh, the replacement ever Levine.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Oh, it's it's very similar to the Where's Paula? Yep, yep,
the Beatles type thing this one.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
I like this. I'll tell you this. I'm not a
huge fan of ever Levine's song in the first place,
like the original complicated, but I will say I like
that he did three separate jokes, one for each verse
instead of just being like, oh look, this is going
to lead to the same joke again. Yeah, and another
thing too. I don't think this is the best parody

(37:57):
on the record, but I think this is another one
that would have been a better choice for the first single.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, yeah, I totally. It would have been a rather
complicated video to make, given that its three separate Yeah,
it'd be the first.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
It'd be the first weird Al video that was censored
for all the things that would have to be in it.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Oh god, the poop, the decapitation, the incest, It's just
full of it. It's full of so many.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Things that one kills me because I wasn't that you know,
if you were to say to me before you played
this for me, weird ELL's going to do complicated. He's
going to make three different jokes. I would have been like, well,
decapitated will probably be one of them, and constipated will
definitely be one of them. I never ever ever expected
the third verse race as we were both related. It

(38:45):
kills me, I know.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
I know, and especially how they get there. And then
suddenly I spy tattooed on her thigh her family crest.
It's just like the one on me.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah, and again talk about this being lacking in counts
potato and this one again. It the way it mimics
her original rhyme scheme is perfect. It's the joke doesn't
even have to be that funny because you can still
marvel at the wordplay, you know. And if you were
to say to someone, hey, where to tell made a

(39:17):
song about incest? How funny? They would be like, no,
you know, but it's his again, like you said, uh,
right there, and who would have guessed her family cross?
Like the way it goes, You're like, well, that's just brilliant.
I have to laugh at that because it's brilliant. I
don't even care that he's joking about incest.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
I know, I know, I know, And like, how do
you how do you get to be like to propose
to somebody without having seen their their thigh? Were you
ever wearing shorts? Like where do you live?

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah? Yeah, I guess, but yeah I do. I think
like again not the best parody on the record, but
I think it's again, I still think it's stronger than
the lead Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Yeah, you're right. I So basically what a lot of
what we're talking about here is boiling down to the
fact that this album is so good, but it was
just kind of derailed by the lead single not being
what it should have been.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Oh, I totally weird All's whole career for me comes
down to if that first single is big, you can
talk to people and they will know other songs off
of the record, They've at least listened to other things.
And if that first single flops, like Couch Potato very
much did, no one knows anything off the rest of

(40:38):
the record, like if it's not strong enough for them
to buy and at least hear the album wants through
in the car and that's yeah, I think this whole
me personally, I think this whole record was tanked by
that lead single.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yeah, absolutely for sure. Like when I saw weird Ol
on the tour supporting this album, like, we didn't go
because we loved this album. We went because it was
weird al And that's why the shirt that I have
is not from that tour is not the cover of
this album, right, Yeah, you know the shirt that I

(41:11):
got was in the back of it says the weird
al Experience, But yeah. Complicated song is followed up by
why does this always happen to me? So?

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Is this the original? You don't like all that much?

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Oh? No, it's not an original. I don't like all
that much.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Oh. Oh okay, okay, Oh it's a oh it's a
oh okay.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, you're gonna know now. No, I like this song.
It's a it's a ben Fold style parody.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this is one of those things
where I could be weak reading way too much into this,
but I feel like this is kind of a like
a commentary on society from Weird Now, Like there are
a lot of people who very much feel this way
all the time, Like no matter what you know, no
matter what bad is going on out there, you know,

(42:03):
somehow it affects them worse than everybody. And it could
be me internalizing too at the time that this came out,
and it's still to this day, I know at least
one person that's this way still that everything affects them
worse than everything else, you know, no matter what bad
is going on in the world. This somehow has caused
them a huge hardship, and I like, maybe not, Maybe

(42:26):
weird All just sat down and wrote an innocent song.
But I kind of feel like this is like a
social commentary.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
No, yeah, I think it is. I think it is.
I don't think weird Else sits down to write innocent songs.
I think weird Ol always has something in mind when
he does something. Even if it's just, you know, just
about food, there's always another layer to it. And I
think this song it's exposing the worst in people, you know.

(42:56):
And I listened to it, you know again, you know,
in advance of our conversation, I did listen through this
album quite a few times, and you know, every time
I came across this song, I recognized something in myself.
At the beginning of this whole you know, COVID quarantine business,
my local news station would break in in the morning

(43:20):
with you know, the local case numbers and things like that,
and they'd always do it during the price is right,
and I would always get very upset about that, like,
how dare they It's not like I was recording it
or like it's anything special, But it's like let's make

(43:41):
a deal and the price is right. You know. If
I'm at home, that's my two hours in the morning
that I enjoy having, so don't mess with it. And
they messed with it every day, and it was always
either you know, the mayor or the governor or you know,
even a national press conference, and I'm just like stop, Yeah,
I just want to watch Drew carry please, Like why

(44:04):
is this happening to me?

Speaker 2 (44:06):
I keep doing that. I still as it gets it's
not way less, but as we get through this and
it gets less and less, I still find myself being like, oh,
woe is me? Why live concerts? I should get to
go to live concerts. And then I'll see an article
shared on social media or something that's like this many
hundreds of thousands of people passed away in the world today,
and I'm like, okay, that's probably more important than if

(44:29):
I go to a concert, you know. But specific to
this song, though, I like, I say, I still in
my real life Noah person today? Who is this guy
who if we had a mutual friend pass away. I
am positive at some point he would mention, oh and
he owed me five bucks, you know, which is like

(44:50):
in this song, like I know the guy this song
is specifically.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
About, you know, yeah, yeah, oh my god, that's I mean,
that's funny, but it's not funny. Like there's something about this,
I think in everybody, but there's some people that have
more of it than others.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yeah yeah. And also, like you said too, if you
have the internal reflection to stop like and go oh,
I can't believe they're interrupted the prices. Oh wait a minute,
this is more series than that, Like, you know, what
this song is about the people who have no self
awareness before that, you know.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
Yeah, And I think we'd be we'd be remiss if
we didn't get a little bit into the quote end
quote source material of this song, because of course we'd now.
Ben Folds is actually the one that does the piano
solo on the song, which is really cool. And you know,
it's a style parody of ben Folds music and if

(45:46):
you're if you're into ben Folds at all, which you
know at the at the time, like I totally was
that two thousand and one album Rocking the Suburbs was
like my jam when it came out. You know, I
had the the discman with the adapter that went in
the cassette player of my car at the time, and

(46:06):
that's what was like that basically lived in it, and
the songs on that they're all like, you know, rhapsodizing
about relatively small things. Yeah, and I feel like Weird
now not only hit the nail on the head with
the sound of the style parody, but he also kind

(46:29):
of hit the nail on the head with like Ben
Folds writes these big songs about very small things, and
there's these people feeling very big feelings about very small
things that are happening to them while bigger things are
happening somewhere else. And I just think that's that's kind
of neat. Like there's layers again, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
It's like like there's so many things like and again
not to veer off this record too much, but like
you take a style parody like Charles Nelson Riley like
a huge ye I'm a huge Jack White and the
White Stripes fan, and there are so many layers to
that song that are outside of the Chuck Norris joke,

(47:11):
and and it sounds like a White Stripe song. And
it's the same thing here exactly what you're saying, Like,
even for somebody like me who the only Ben Folds.
I saw ben Folds open for Beck back on the
Odela tour. Oh wow, So that was like I wasn't
against ben Folds, but I didn't know too much about
him until I saw that show, and then I was like,
holy shit, all right, you know this is good and uh,

(47:34):
same thing like if you're like me and you don't
you could just kind of go around ben Folds a
little bit. You get a lot deeper appreciation for him
through what weird ELL's doing. Even though this song is,
you know, ultimately silly, it still deepens your appreciation for
the artist that he's doing the style.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Payenty of Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely in the fact that
you know it's Ben Folds playing the weirdou could have
done that piano SOLOI there's no question in my mind.
But the fact that he had ben Folds come in
and do it is super cool.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah. It's like Nooffler doing the guitar on Beverly Hillbilly.
So you're like, you know, like code weird and I
don't know Wheredell's guitar player's name. I feel dumb.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
Ste uh oh my god, Steve J is the bassist
bert is it Bermda No, Bermuda is the drummer, John
Bermuina Schwartz is the drummer. It's Jim West.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Jim West. Okay, I have no doubt my I can
play the rift of Money for Nothing, so I'm sure
Jim Wests could play the riff for it. But the
fact that Mark Knopfler did it is just cool.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
It's cool, and I mean they did that for legal reasons,
which is also why the song is called Money for
Nothing slash Beverly Hillbilly's Yeah weird. Al wanted to call
it the Ballad of Jed clamp It, but I digress. Uh. Oh,
We're we're getting through it. Okay, We're onto the song

(48:56):
Owe to a superhero.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
So this is another one where I get, you know,
the title is what it is, you know, like he
couldn't just call it Spider Man, because nobody would look
at that and go, oh, piano man.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Uh For me too, this is uh, it's interesting that
he dipped into classic rock for this because everything is
usually so contemporary. Yeah, but I like it, Like, I'm
not mad that he went back and did Piano Man
out of nowhere. And also, to me, this reminds me
so much of the saga begins, because you pretty much

(49:30):
don't have to see Spider Man. You can listen to
this song and know, you know how the movie goes,
certainly with the saga begins as well. So yeah, there's
not a lot to do. I guess the only thing
I could say about this is like, it's not my
favorite and it's not the worst. It's just there for me,
It's just there for you.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
This is the song I skip, Yeah, for a couple
of reasons. What you danced around it here? I feel like, okay,
this is the album after this saga begins, and once
again he's summarizing a movie with a classic song. Whoopee
number two. I love Billy Joel. I absolutely love Billy Joel.
I love everything. But I skip Piano Man because I

(50:15):
I like, give me Vienna, give me I love these days,
like give me anything else. But I skip piano Man
because piano is the piano Man is just like that.
Like I'm like, all right, I'm done. So I skip
this for basically those reasons.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
I spent too much time in karaoke bars when I
was younger to hear piano Man again ever in my life.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah, yep, piano man Paradise by the dashboard light.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
We don't listen to that one love shack every Dixie
Chick song. Yes, I ye the heart.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Have you ever had somebody at a kerr Yoku bar
try to do Turn the Page by Bob Seeger.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
I would like to take this opportunity to remind you
that I'm sitting in Detroit right now. So yes, no, okay,
oh no, I mean, I mean everything right now, We're
all locked down in COVID and someone is still singing
Turned the Page at a karaokee bar right now. Someone
is sitting in the parking lot outside of karaoke bar
singing Turn the Page right now.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
It's just such like it's not a bad song. It's
just a bad karaoke song.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yep. All I can do is agree. I just I
used to work at a best buy back in the
late nineties, and the guy that ran the media section
at the time, every time Turn the Page would come
on the overhead, he would go, you can hear him
across the store. Go shut up, Bob. That's how sick
of that song everyone into Detroit is.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
But anyway, we're not talking about Bob Seeker. We're talking
about weird al Yakovic and to a superhero it's.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
It's just there. It's just there. Yeah, And I didn't
even I didn't even think about what you mentioned too
about it being so similar. Like I picked out how
similar it was to the cccle begins and that he
had just done classic rock before, But I didn't even
think about exactly what you just said. Where like this
is like right after the saga begins, it's like, all right, well,
let's go to that well again.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
Yeah, yeah, it's the same. Well, it's like, okay, another
story song, another story about a movie. All right, let's
go uh. But then we get into Bob perfect.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
I have in all caps perfect. That's the first word
that I typed in my notes. Perfect, Yeah, because it
is it is perfect. If this is the song that
if I was if I said to someone, hey, you know,
where the hell does more than just parodies? Right? And
they go, what was he have his originals? They go, yeah,
he is this originals, but he also has style parodies.
If they said, what the hell is a style parody?

(52:43):
This is the song I would play for them?

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yep. I would play yes, yes, one hundred percent. I
would play this one and mission.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Statement yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Yeah, these are the two. These are the two because
this song it yeah, it's perfect. I can't even say
anything other than that every single line in this song
is a palindrome. I find myself saying these things all
the time.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
I can't tell you how many times in my life
I've said lonely tiland all like yep, oh. One thing.
I want to know what I used to use for
my style parody. Example, before this, like before Bob existed,
if someone said, what the hell is a style parody?
I would play Twister from even worse yeah and just

(53:28):
go you ever heard the Beastie Boys? Yeah, okay, like
this is what a style parody is.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Yes, Milton Bradley's got a death one.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
It's yeah yeah, and the way like the way that
it's the yell Overs. Anybody in their life who's heard Yeah,
anybody who's heard licensed Ill in their life, any portion
of that record will know what a style parody is. Yeah,
when they hear Twister. But but Bob came out and
took over that Twister has been retired.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
Now now I go to Bob, Yeah, Bob, it's perfect.
And this is actually the one that they ended up
making the video for for this this album. They shot
it really quickly and it was a video parody of
Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Video or or if you're if you're my younger friend, Oh,
is he doing the end of the Nxcess video? And
I was like no. I was like, no, in Excess
was doing the Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan name of the
name of the song is Bob never mind. Yeah, but yeah, yeah,

(54:34):
and it's I was that was the stuff dreams are
made of. When that video came out, I was like,
this is exactly what I need for this.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Uh huh. And if you didn't realize when you heard
it that every line was a palindrome, he spoon fed
it to you with that.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Video, Oh yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. I have to mention
two other lines that I will just say in public
randomly and people will I've actually had p in public
be like oh I know that song, like just because
of things I'm saying. One is a oh no down
ho that that and then the other is a Toyota's
a toyota just like.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Yeah, that's the classic Talan Droke.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
Yeah. But the one the lonely tilent All like I
will just getting a leave, not even time and all,
getting a leave from the cabin at but you're like
a lonely time and all. My wife's like, oh yep,
that weird hel thing again.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Oh my god. It's because of this song. Is the
reason why I don't say egg, I say egg.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Or yeah, or if we are in a public and
now I see bees on roun, you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
We get a pee. That's so good. It's so good.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
It's just it's it's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
It's so good.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Literally like the the I'm not kidding you. I wish
I could show you my second matter. The very first
thing on my note is perfect in all caps.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
It was great. Yeah, so we touched on that, and
then the next song on this album is also one
that we've already hit on. An episode of this show
is eBay, and I have a feeling this is the
one you think should have been the.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
Single, absolutely should have been the first single. The original
was monster. I mean, Hindsight's twenty twenty. But it's not
to say Eminem is not relevant anymore or people don't
still love a lot of things Eminem puts out, but
the longevity of I want it that way against lose

(56:38):
yourself is Night and Day. Like people still very much
sing that song, they love that song. I think this
is far better than concert pantato all the way across
the board. It shows off one thing that I think
is criminally underrated about Weirdel is its vocal ability, and
he really gets to show off in this song. I

(57:03):
just think that the like, I don't even know if
hindsight can apply here, because I think in the moment,
how would you not know that I wanted that way
was just much bigger than what happened M had going on.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Yeah, yeah, there was no way. There was no way
to really know, and I don't I truly don't know
what he was thinking. I think the reason he didn't
want to make the video for it, and in doing
some digging before we talked, was that at the time,
eBay itself was actually putting out commercials, and the commercials

(57:37):
had parodies in them, and so he didn't want to
get all caught up in that. But weird Al was
kind of you know again hindsight sort of quoted as saying,
you know, it might not have been such a bad
idea to get caught up in that, because it would
have been better for me.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
This is one of those things wherever I whenever I
force people, and I say that having forced people to
listen to Olive Poodle Hat, every single time that song
comes on, people are like, why have I never heard
this before? Uh?

Speaker 1 (58:09):
Um, yeah, yeah, it's criminally underheard.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
It's one of the first times in a long time
that I have I love the outro of a weird
Al song as much or more than the body of it. Uh.
The one that the one that I always think of
is when he's doing the fat jokes at the end
of fat Uh with the when Michael Jackson has that
brilliant cross melody going uh uh, and weird Al does
the uh when I sand around the house, I really

(58:36):
around the house. And in this one yeah yeah, and
in this one with the junk keeps arriving in the
male like the like he just it's those parts are
even more brilliant than than the first part of the song.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, and it's talking about the outro of eBay. One
thing I noticed criminally recently is the very very end
of the song because I wanted that way. Oh, I
didn't realize how long that went on.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Oh yeah, weird Ow holds it for an uncomfortably long time.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
Funny, It's so funny.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Oh yeah. I think he does certain things for his
diehard fans, and I think that's one of those where
like he knew that all of us would giggle every
time he did one more at the very end of
the song.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Yeah, that is a perfect segue into things that weird
Al does for his diehard fans, which is always the
last track of the album.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Oh Lord almighty, this might be my favorite closer. I
mean that's a tight raight so Albuquerque and Minnesota closes out,
uhf right, yes, okay, yeah, And this is in the
discussion though for my favorite album closers.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Yeah, it's it's definitely up there, because I mean, he
started his career doing wild album closers, because his first
album closed with Mister Frump and the Iron Lung, and
then he did Nature Trail to Hell, you know, and
it just goes on. You have you know, pegas Ball
of Twine in Minnesota, the Night Santa went Crazy Albuquerque

(01:00:17):
and then you land on Genius in France.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
The song is brilliant, brilliant.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Absolutely, and I will go on record and because my
brother will call me out on it. If I don't
say it is, I am not the first one to
jump up and say yeah genius. And France definitely listened
to that one because it's one of those songs that
I have to be like in the mood for. But
when I'm in the mood for it, like damn is
it good, I need to make sure I say that

(01:00:45):
Dweezl Zappa actually does the guitar intro for this song,
because of course it's a Frank Zappa style parody, which
calls on so much weird Al history, right, because Frank
Zappa was a staple on The Doctor to Show, which
is where weird Aw got his start. So this is
like everything sort of coming to a head.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
And this is one of those ones where when we
I think, I think I told you this before we
went on air, but uh, I'm always looking for a
reason to bust out weird Al on Fridays when we
have people over. And I have one friend who's a
staunch Frank Zappa fan and years ago I played Jenus
in France form and he just this is the greatest thing.
Every time it switched styles, he was like, this is
the great thing I've ever heard, Like this is this

(01:01:28):
is so perfect. This is DNA so and on the
remote chance that someone new comes and somehow Frank Zappa
comes up, my other buddy will always be like, oh boy,
poodle poodle hats coming out? I mean, because I'm always like,
oh you you like Frank Zappa, Well do you have
a minute to talk about weird now? You know? Like,
but I'll say this too, though, every Zappa fan I've

(01:01:51):
ever played this for adores it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
They love it, yeah, because they have there's a commonality
in kind of background and sensibility and appreciation and talent.
You know, Frank Zappa was just as you know, talented
as weird Al is just you know, in Frank Zappa's
way versus weird Al's way. And they kind of the

(01:02:15):
audio the Venn diagram of Weird Al fans and Frank
Zappa fans is there's a very deep overlap there.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Oh yeah, yeah, totally ye.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
So you know it's not like you're you're having to
pull teeth to get one to listen to the other.
But yeah, this is wild And there's so many bits
in this that I feel like are perfect in so
many ways. The part that always gets stuck in my
head that I feel like could be a whole Like
I feel like it would be like a like a

(01:02:44):
late sixties, early seventies just rock song. Is the a
little more to the left boys, a little more, a
little more to the left, Like I could hear somebody.
I can't even think of a band that would make
sense to do it, but I feel like, yeah, that
would make sense comming from somebody at some point somewhere
like around that time period, like yeah, maybe the Animals

(01:03:07):
or something like where you got the deep voice. I
could just hear that being a whole song on its own,
And there's all the parts of it could be a
song on their own, much like you know, everything Frank
Zappa it Frank Zappa did had all those little little parts.
That's part of the genius of it. Again.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Yeah, and you know what, I think this is another
one too, though, where even though it's it's obviously a
mega style parody, I think anybody could enjoy this, Like
I don't think you have to come to it appreciating Zappa.
I don't think you would even be turned off if
you're like, oh, I don't like Zappa at all. Like,
I think everybody can appreciate this track no matter what. Yeah,

(01:03:48):
it's but it's and again and I put this in
my notes. It's a perfect way to end the record too,
because this record, love it or hate it or you're
indifferent to it, it is quite a bit different than
the average weird L album, and like, what a way
to end it with such an uncommon thing. I could

(01:04:09):
easily listen to this song without even putting any thought
into the comedy aspect of it, Like it's that good
of a song.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
Yeah, great, googlely moviely.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
It's just it's just wonderful. My uh, my personal favorite
part in the song. I do like the little more
to the left, but the whole uh, not just the
wei wei part, but that's right, that's it. Yeah, it's
just wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Yeah, it's just so it's good. It's very good. It's
very good. Well, we've we've run through Poodle hat Man.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
We have and I'm I'm like, if if even one
person listening to this goes, I guess I'll give the
album another shot, then I'll be happy. Like I I
just I think this is such an underrated work from him,
all all the way across the board. And you know,
we can sit here and guess all day long about
why the single was the single and whatever. But you know,

(01:05:10):
at least it's it's out there for people to go
back and take a listen to. I know I talk
about it entirely too much, so so uh, you know,
I'm doing what I can to help.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
Yeah. I love having people on to talk about like
what their favorite weird al album is, or as we
call them on the show, are weird albums? Your favorite
weird album is?

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
And I'm so glad I found a poodle hat guy, Like, seriously,
I'm going.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
To get a T shirt mate that says I'm a
poodle hat guy. And then and then I'll go around
to public and judge people on it. If people are
like if if anybody, if a, if someone knows who
it is, what it is, then then we can have
a conversation. It'd be if they're like, oh I don't
like that album that much, I'll be like, well, it
was nice knowing you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Yeah. I always joke that my weird al shirts are
like a litmus test. Now now that I've been wearing
them for all of this year so far, it's been
very interesting, you know, going out and public to the
store or whatever, and and the reactions that I get
from people, I kind of know who's okay to talk
to and who's not, especially with the particular shirt I had.

(01:06:19):
I was hear my spacheless City shirt last week? No?

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
I just were uh special a City? I H what
was there Christmas special? They had a holiday special, didn't I?
By nine Specialists get get the tent to one for
just one penny?

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
That's correct? Yeah, what better way to say I love you? That?

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Is that deal still running? Can I still get that
from Specialis City?

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
No? Unfortunately, I don't believe we can still get that
from Specialist City. But you'd have to ask side cream Bomb.
Because he loved the spatulist so much she bought the company.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to talk over you. It's great,
but you said you had bought your you were wearing
your Specialist City shirt And was this a good story
or a bad story?

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
No, it's a checkout. The little the kid at the
checkout at the grocery store, ask me, is that a
real place? Like?

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
Child?

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Though, You're like, have you not seen the commercials? The
commercials around all the time? Yeah? Oh do you not watch? Yeah?
Do you not get u sixty two where you're from,
because that commercial runs constantly. Oh my god, and now
if you now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to
go home and watch Gandhi two.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Yeah, I'll have a steak medium there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Oh again, not to derail too much, but uhf very
unfortunately for my family came out right before we took
a family trip to West Virginia, driving to and from Detroit,
and as a family, five people in this van and
my family got to hear Gandhi too and spatul A

(01:07:53):
City and all those songs way more times in their
life than they ever planned on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Oh my god, that'sn't yeah that that album is not
it's like the UAHF soundtrack and other stuff. Did that
has sheet drives like crazy?

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Oh boy, that's another gayway one. If we ever get
to talk about the eighties and somebody's like, oh, you know,
find on Cannibals, I'm something my other buddy, I'll be like,
oh boy, he's going to lead this to weird al.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
I think we're going to wrap up or talk about
poodle Hat. Do you want to bookend again saying like
anything else?

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Ye, if anybody would like to hear me talk about
things that are not weird al even though we do
work him in every so often on the show when
it's close to appropriate, I will work him in. Uh.
If you go to Infectious groofpodcast dot com, you can
find everywhere to subscribe to our show there, or you
can go to infection our YouTube dot com slash Infectious

(01:08:47):
Groove Podcasts. And we have a new vinyl video that
goes up every week, so I do it's not just like, hey,
this is this unvinyl like I talk about the record
and whatnot and and uh, and when I do the
weird al one, I'll kind of go into a little
little bit of bouty joble and that type of stuff too.
So those two places are where people can find us
if they want to take a listen.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Russ from the Infectious Groove Podcast, thank you so much
for being here to talk poodle hat with me.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Thanks for having me right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Yeah, So, once again, this has been a very special
episode of the Beard Doll Podcast. I'm Lauren and Russ
has been awesome to be here. And check us out
next time because we're going to be talking about boogers. Aha.
All right, go bye. I