This Might Be The Angriest “Weird Al” Has Ever Been
Look, “Weird Al” Yankovic doesn’t have to ask anyone’s permission to make goofy, accordion-driven parody songs. It’s all fair use, the Supreme Court confirmed in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., even when such recordings are sold commercially. But as a matter of respect and personal ethics, Yankovic always asks ‘pretty please’ before releasing a parody.
“I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings,” Yankovic told the Washington Post in 2017. “I don't want to be embroiled in any nastiness. That's not how I live my life. I like everybody to be in on the joke and be happy for my success. I take pains not to burn bridges.”
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That’s why he approached the Lady Gaga team in 2011 about his parody, “Perform This Way,” a spoof of the singer’s mega hit, “Born This Way.” He was initially wary of making fun of such an “earnest human rights anthem,” but figured a parody of Gaga’s over-the-top performing style would satisfy everyone.
Gaga’s team wasn’t so sure. They asked to see the song’s lyrics first, and “Weird Al” was happy to oblige. Once Gaga’s managers had the words, they came back with another request. She needed to actually hear the song.
“Well, this was mystifying to me,” Yankovic wrote on his blog. “At this point, she has the lyrics… and hopefully she is familiar with her own song… and the parody is basically her music… with my lyrics. It really shouldn’t be that hard to decide – based on having the lyrics right in front of you – whether or not you’d be ‘okay’ with a parody.”
Creating a finished song was a problem, since Yankovic was on vacation over his daughter’s spring break following a long tour. But “because I now had to record what ostensibly was going to be my ‘hit single’ as quickly as humanly possible, I cut our vacation short and came back to L.A. to spend long days and nights in the studio,” he said. “The band and I worked around the clock.”
A few days later, Yankovic got the final word: Lady Gaga says “no.”
The comedy star was understandably miffed. What exactly was Gaga’s problem? Sure, he’d taken a few gentle pokes at the singer in the lyrics, but as “Weird Al” fans know, his punches rarely deliver knockout blows. “I’m especially confused as to why she waited until I actually recorded the song (at her insistence!) before saying no,” he complained. “It’s not like there were any surprises in the finished song that she couldn’t have foreseen by, you know, READING THE LYRICS.”
Yankovic kept his personal pledge not to release the song commercially. But because he was so steamed about the debacle, he posted the song online for free, along with a plea for fans to donate to the Human Rights Campaign. “Believe me,” he wrote. “Nobody is more disappointed than I am.”
But then a strange thing happened after Yankovic posted the song. It became a viral hit, and one of the song’s biggest fans was … Lady Gaga. Apparently, her management team had been behind all the permission nonsense, and she had no idea “Perform This Way” existed.
“Well, this was a strange day,” Yankovic posted a few days later. The manager “apparently made the decision completely on his own, without any input from Gaga. He’s sorry.”
“And Gaga loves the song.”
Permission granted.
