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The practice of waiting for the “next big thing” debuted with this album, and in a sense, would guide Al effectively when releasing records for the next 20 years.
You see, after ‘UHF’ was done, Al wasted little time getting back to the studio after the commercial failure of the aforementioned album/movie. By the time 1990 was complete, Yankovic recorded his original tracks, but was mainly waiting for the parodies.
Al almost went to the well that brought him to the proverbial dance. Michael Jackson’s album ‘Dangerous’, released in November of 1991, featured a song called ‘Black and White’, which Al wanted to parody. While Jackson liked Al’s work in the past, he refused to give Al “permission” to parody it because it might compromise the message of the work.
So then Al went to Paul McCartney, and asked if he could use his Wings song “Live and Let Die”, to be rebranded as “Chicken Pot Pie”. Paul McCartney told him that he could parody anything of his catalog, but he wouldn’t allow ‘Pot Pie’ because he condones hazardous activity to animal flesh.
Now Al waits… and waits… until early 1992 when Nirvana comes out with “Nevermind,” and that hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. With that in mind, let’s waste no time in reviewing “Off the Deep End!”
1. “Smells Like Nirvana”: As you can tell by the opening, this song is indeed a parody of “Smells like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. While procuring the rights to parody, Kurt Cobain asked Al if the parody would be about food. Al quipped with no, it’s actually about the unintelligible lyrics to your song!
Thus, that’s the plot. Al mocks Kurt, and the rest of the band follows suit.
Here’s another giggle moment turned shill, “Buy our album, we're NIRVANA!”
The music video is probably among the more joyfully bizarre in the Al vault. Along with the band mocking Nirvana, you have janitors as ballerinas, Al literally drooling out marbles, and that…ending…ugh!
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - Smells Like Nirvana lyrics
2. “Trigger Happy”: Although the lyrics are original, the “feel” of the song is a mixture of The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean. This is utmost surprising in my view, because the tone/mood of the song is a complete contrast of both of those bands works’. However, isn’t that what Al is about?
Anyways, the song revolves around Al’s character, a gun nut who always has ample ammunition on him just in case “x” happens. When we mean by “x”, it’s either the commies, the Nazis, Fluffy, or even his own Dad! Hey, its his constitutional right dammit!
Even without the sound effects, when I listen to this song, all I can think of is Al sitting on the couch with his Smith and Wesson, drinking beer and, “…shoot(ing) at anything that moves!”
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - Trigger Happy lyrics
3. “I Can’t Watch This”: The original source material is quite the famous track itself, that of “You Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer.
Think of the song this way: the character from “Cable TV” off of “Dare to be Stupid” is finally fed up with the wonders of cable. It seems like all the stuff is TRASH, and he can’t wait to get rid of it.
Long gone are the days of “Bugs Bunny in Atlanta, Midget Wrestling on Channel 3…”, all replaced by “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and Judge Wapner (aka People’s Court).
Of all the songs on this album, this one makes me laugh amongst the hardest. There are some lyrics (just look in the widget yourself) that just rip your gut a new one.
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - I Can't Watch This lyrics
4. “Polka Your Eyes Out”: Oh goodie goodie, another polka track! Here’s the eclectic bastardization this time baby right round:
- "Cradle of Love" by Billy Idol
- "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega
- "Love Shack" by The B-52's
- "Clarinet Polka" (Public domain)
- "Pump Up the Jam" by Technotronic
- "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.
- "Unbelievable" by EMF
- "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe
- "Enter Sandman" by Metallica
- "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground
- "Cherry Pie" by Warrant
- "Miss You Much" by Janet Jackson
- "I Touch Myself" by Divinyls
- "Dr. Feelgood" by Mötley Crüe
- "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice
- "Ear Booker Polka" by "Weird Al" Yankovic
There is a hard rock riff before it segues into the main polka theme itself. In my personal opinion, that was a BRILLIANT move, and thus it automatically separates this polka from others previous.
As for the general song, it’s just as brilliant. While the “Hot Rocks” from UHF was a good standard polka of Al’s, this one really set the bar. It features your contemporary tracks, mixed wonderfully to Al’s accordion-based silliness. This is for my money amongst Al’s best, and with that in mind, not a weak track to be had so far!
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - Polka Your Eyes Out lyrics
5. “I Was Only Kidding”: It’s a lyrical original, but a style parody of Toni K.
This feels like foreshadowing, as in this might feel tied to the last song of the album. Overall plot features Al, a chauvinistic dick, declaring his love for a woman an absolute joke. Kind of in a role reversal of how Al’s woman from “One More Minute” made their love a complete joke and Al was on the “destroying the paper trail”.
Also, it must be noted that Al makes the beginning complete a cappella, a “church sounding” note of sincerity driven into the metal-filled madness of self-induced insanity.
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - I Was Only Kidding lyrics
6. “The White Stuff”: Do you recognize the song this parodies off of? Well, if you don’t, it’s "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" by New Kids on the Block.
Simply put, it’s a track featuring Al confessing his love for the filling in the middle of an Oreo. No matter how it affects his taste buds, or his dentals!
Not only does he rubs it on toast, but he also does it on a roast! A weird reference because Al turned vegan after UHF, but I guess caramelizing it with onions gives it a taste no one can get their head around.
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - The White Stuff lyrics
7. “When I Was Your Age”: Here is something I didn’t know until I did some research. Apparently, this song is a style parody of… A MONTY PYTHON SKETCH?!?!?!? “Four Yorkshiremen” is the title of said sketch, and here is the video of it below,
Before I get off base, I said in a previous blog that this song, THIS ONE, is my favorite “Weird Al” song of all time. Here is the blurb I wrote about it in that entry:
THIS, my friends, is perhaps the author’s personal favorite Al song. The main character, a much-older Al of bitter and disenfranchised memories, talks about how the current generation (with Nintendos and water beds) is so spoiled (to his salt on snails and sleeping on broken glass). The exaggerations in this song are quite staggering, “Nobody ever drove me to school when it was 40 degrees below! I walked buck-naked, through 40 miles of snow!” Like “Good Old Days” briefly mentioned in the ‘Alimony’ entry, this song is a gore and guts torture song to the zenith degree. “They chopped me into pieces, and played frisbee with my brain! I’m gonna tell ya junior, you never heard me complain when I was your age!”
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - When I Was Your Age lyrics
8. “Taco Grande”: This song has another famous pedigree behind it. The guilty party is “Rico Suave” by Gerardo.
Mexican food and its followings are the name of the game here. The food is so good that Al needs doggie bags, and he can’t fit in his speedo! Imagine if the family from “Lasagna” was turned Mexican and made this like a “cultural” double-play?
That and Cheech Marin does a monologue completely in Spanish!
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - Taco Grande lyrics
9. “Airline Amy”: This song is indeed another style parody (but lyrical original), this time of Nick Lowe and Jonathan Richman.
If Butthead could put his mind to somewhat-intelligent dialogue concerning that stewardess from the plane in the “Do America” movie, it’d be a reasonable facsimile to this song.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll explain it in brevity: Al’s character is on a flight, and he is admired by Amy, a stewardess who just goes around and does her job. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I’ll note that this song isn’t bad, but compared to the some of the other knock-out-of-the-park tracks on here, it’s age (the first song recorded in 1990) doesn’t seem to the youngness of the others.
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - Airline Amy lyrics
10. “The Plumbing Song”: The songwriters behind the original material were known for a scandal much more than anything they ever wrote. It also shows how old some of Al’s previously recorded was.
Milli Vanilli, authors of "Baby Don't Forget My Number" and "Blame It on the Rain", were pretty much destroyed by a lip-synching scandal in 1991. Al later claimed this parody to be “redundant”, and in a sense almost regretful he did this.
So in respect to this blunder, I’ll keep it short. The plot is about Al’s character referring a friend to a plumber he knows.
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - The Plumbing Song lyrics
11. “You Don’t Love Me Anymore”: This song is an original, both in music and in lyrics.
Plot of the song revolves around Al’s girlfriend doing horrific things to him, yet he is completely oblivious to their meanings.
The song is pretty light on the instruments too. A hint of percussion behind guitars really, the sound is complimenting the rawness of the subject matter.
This song however is overshadowed by something small that follows long after the track is done.
Although the song on disc is somewhat weak, the music video more than makes up for it. I mean, Robert Goulet gets owned BIG TIME!
On the CD, you wait about ten minutes after the track is done. There’s a six second blurb full of mischief and screaming with no meaning behind it.
Lyrics | Weird Al Yankovic lyrics - You Don't Love Me Anymore lyrics
In conclusion, this album started off GREAT, then kind of trickled down to just good by the end. Just like WrestleMania VIII, this album would have been great if it ended at a certain point, like “Taco Grande” or “When I Was Your Age”. Instead, the last few tracks drag on, and as good as the last track is, most people want to find the easter egg, and the song is much better in video form. While I definitely recommend it for the first eight tracks, the final three are skippable, or should be fed to the dinos…
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