The "Weird Al" Yankovic Songography 25

Yesterday, Today, Forever

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From Greg Method, catra@dohtem.com

June 21, 2008

Ladies, gentlemen, groovy guys, condo-buyers, cable-watchers, cannibalistic dogs, spatulas, flight attendants, dumb and ugly youths, truck drivers, geniuses, viruses, and of course Melanie, welcome one and all to The "Weird Al" Yankovic Songography 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever!

Recently the "New York Times" published an article by a writer in Cairo, Egypt, about how his son has been able to learn about American culture and humor through Al's music. On the subject of "Don't Download This Song," he writes, "The song is a satiric tour through the changing American music industry, and it fits Weird Al's signature?under the cover of goofiness, he pokes fun at a contemporary target in a way that avoids offense."

The writer goes on to say that Al personifies the great American freedom to satirize, something that is much needed in any culture. "Weird Al?s antics...couldn?t have happened in a society that didn?t encourage diversity, tolerance, and compromise....(Nikolas) knows Weird Al became who he is by daring to be different."

Al's work has often been used to expose listeners to other artists or genres, but this takes the idea of being a "gateway artist" to the furthest extreme. Humor is a great way to bring people together, especially if it's in the hands of a master.

And that's what Al has always done so well, blend together the most memorable elements from popular music and American society, make both seem ridiculous, and maybe even throw in an insightful comment or two. This is the job of a satirist, and for nearly three decades now Al has been the music world's most successful and certainly its most prolific, as evident by this almost-complete chronicle of Al's entire audio output.

As always, the Songography owes a great debt to Dave "Elvis" Rossi and Richard Green, who painstakingly researched and supplied many bits of information, and of course to the always helpful Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, who is always gracious and informative no matter what. And I'd also like to give special thanks to Jeff Morris, who is always there with info on both "The Dr. Demento Show" and some of Al's earliest, rarest recordings. Thanks, guys!

For all of you "newbies" reading the Songography for the first time, I need to make a few things clear: the import information in here is not complete, nor is this list meant to be any official import information source (or anything official, for that matter). Also, for the time being, import versions of singles and albums are listed immediately with or after their domestic counterparts (unless specific release dates are known).

Alternate versions of the same songs are listed separately. The only exceptions to this rule are for live performances, and likewise for unique reasons there are only very scant exceptions to that rule. To differentiate the alternate versions of songs, whatever is listed on the unique version's original release is what is used for its entry. If a released alternate version has no such notation on the release, then a short explanation is listed in parentheses next to the song title and the entry is noted with an asterisk.

A version of a song might be noted as being "live" if Al performed it on television or on the radio, but such notation is not an exact science (and I'll be the first to admit that it's a flawed system). Generally the loose rule is that a song will be counted as "live" if it's an impromptu performance, such as during an interview.

Regarding listed years for unreleased songs: for non-concert songs, the date given is when it was recorded, if known. For all other unreleased songs (concert songs or otherwise), the date given is the year that Al first performed it.

And, a couple of notes on bootlegs: I strive to be as complete as possible, so older versions of bootleg collections will be listed even if an author has gone back to update theirs, so you may see a title appear several times or in different ways. Likewise, tapes of concerts may have had other songs added after the actual show, so don't think there's a screw-up if you see an older song listed for a newer concert (or vice versa). And the absence of a bootleg does not mean that a given song is completely unavailable; it just means that nobody has offered it publicly yet in a physical form (I don't count downloads, YouTube clips, or torrents as "releases"). As always, I'll be more than happy to forward any further questions or concerns regarding specific bootlegs to their respective authors.

Of course, any and all information is subject to change or to be added to (if not, then there wouldn't be that much of a point in mailing out updates like this....would there??!).

As always, any contribution is greatly appreciated. If you have any addition, correction, query, complaint, or comment to make concerning an entry, please let me know. The next edition of the Songography will be available in December, just in time for the holidays. Until then, please check out my Al site All Things Yankovic (which will be celebrating its tenth anniversary later this summer) for information on the Songography and what you can do to help, among other fun things. And you can also check out the Songography's home on the web at Elvis's We've Got It All On UHF site.

In addition to Jon, Dave, Jeff, and Richard, I want to send thanks for supplying information one way or another, for helping me obtain certain items to include in this Songography, for beating me over the head with a correction, and for just plain old support to Dr. Demento, Carlotta Barnes, Marty Lick, Julie Prather, Steve Jay, Steve Chai, Whimsical Will (who solved a major Al mystery this time out!), Insane Ian Bonds, Michael Lestatkatt, Sharon Bayly, Amanda Cohen, Mike Aquilina, Mike Hoffman, GoodTime Gil, B.J. Kelley, Lex Friedman, Paul Rogers from Those Darn Accordions!, Amanda Deer, Tony Goldmark, Stephen J. Ward, Denise Olderr, Cecile Smith, Noel Blanc, Renegade Animation, Eddie Izzard, Jay Levey, all my fellow "concert trackers" over at WOWAY, Rebecca, and Nina's dad.

And of course this Songography is dedicated to Al, Steve, Jim, Rubén and Jon and all that they do to bring us all together.

In the meantime, there are two things you can do to help honor Al and the guys. You can contribute to the Weird Al Star Fund, the fan campaign to get Al a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Meanwhile, the Make the Rock Hall "Weird" grassroots campaign is currently putting together a video documentary and needs fans to appear on-camera to plead to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to induct Al. If you are a Weird Al fan at all, I urge you to check out both web sites to help out any way you can.

So, sit back, enjoy, always question authority, don't forget to register to vote, and be sure to see Al on the road this summer!

take care,
Greg Method

To sign up to receive the text only version of the Songography and get on the update mailing list, please visit here. Extra special thanks to Greg for letting me post this awesome Songography on my web site! Thanks Greg!

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