By Dr. Matthew Mehan 

Weird Al Yankovic is still weird. And thank God he is. Recently, he had me worried that he somehow un-weirded himself after his 2014 album Mandatory Fun briefly topped the charts at number one — a feat previously unknown to that “White & Nerdy,” polka-playing parodist. But I think his more recent rise to general popularity is not a sign that he is normalizing, but rather a sign that the world knows it’s in desperate need of the one thing Weird Al Yankovic provides: an otherworldly perspective on the all-encompassing cosmetic order in which pop culture attempts to cocoon its billions of victims. When the tailor is swiftly weaving a lie, when the emperor has no clothes, and when the world is following fondly behind, a weird little boy that pokes Mandatory Fun at the whole façade is what the world desperately needs. Weird Al is that weird little boy, or rather, he inspires weird little boys in the heart of every American.

“That’s weird,” you might say. And I reply, “Yes. That is the point.” Let me explain.

Speaking for all young men who ever listened to Weird Al when he was less popular, I can vouch for the effect of his music (and his one awful movie). When Michael Jackson was the king of pop, squeaking in falsetto, grabbing his crotch, and, yes, performing extremely enjoyable songs like “Beat It,” the cosmetic cultural effect of his music as cool, as the “It” thing, as the music of the day, as the best expression of the spirit of our young Gen X moment, is impossible to overstate. And then, like a Lasik surgeon cutting for the very first time, Weird Al drops his 1984 single “Eat It,” and the scales fall from a young boy’s eyes. What seemed like culturally serious, heartfelt lyrics from “Beat It” that counseled the poor lad to “[j]ust beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it / No one wants to be defeated / Showin’ how funky and strong is [his] fight / It doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right” is revealed as the utter tripe it is when Weird Al shatters MJ’s cosmetic effect with his parody “Eat It,” counseling the hungry boy to “[j]ust eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it / Open up [his] mouth and feed it / Have some more yogurt, have some more Spam / It doesn’t matter if it’s fresh or canned.” In Weird Al’s music video for the parody, he struts in the same red leather jacket in which Jackson belts out his tune. The effect is ridiculous, and the king of pop is revealed as entertaining but, at best, farcical fluff.

Like the poets of the ancient city, pop cultural musicians weave an intricate tapestry of the sea, the stars, and the human heart, then invite the impressionable audience to accept it and enter that world, that cosmos. 

Weird Al’s weirdness destroys the cosmetic effect of pop culture through mockery and derision. It is an invaluable public service. Pop cultural icons create an image, an ambience, a vibe, with glitz, rhythm, rhyme, fashion, flashing lights, glitter, smoke, sex, and magic. These various threads weave together and broadcast over our hearts and minds a kind of cosmos. From the Greek word for “a well ordered whole,” “cosmos,” in this instance, means a kind of persuasive image of the way things are. When people begin crying at a Taylor Swift concert, they are not simply being moved by a given fictional scenario in one particular song. No, they have completely entered into Taylor’s cosmetic effect: they weep in agreement with her assessment of the way things ought to be and of the poignancy of the way things are; as they sing along to the lyrics through sobs, they are in accord with her vision of the cosmos. With the whole effect of music, video, personality, concert, radio, streaming, fashion, gossip, — like the poets of the ancient city — pop cultural musicians weave an intricate tapestry of the sea, the stars, and the human heart, then invite the impressionable audience to accept it and enter that world, that cosmos. 

Weird Al’s weirdness destroys the cosmetic effect of pop culture through mockery and derision. It is an invaluable public service.

For instance, Taylor Swift weaves a narcissistic and slightly creepy cosmos of destiny in “You Belong With Me,” parodied by Weird Al in his second to last album Alpocalypse. Her original song casts a cosmos over her audience that makes it seem normal for a girl with strong desires for a boy to hang around him all the time as his friend “in the room” while he’s “on the phone with [his] girlfriend” who “doesn’t get [his] humor” the way she does. And what, you may ask, is Weird Al’s parody of Taylor’s narcissistic apologia for a stalker friend who is “standing by and waiting at [the boy’s] backdoor” for him to break up with his girlfriend? It is a pitch perfect parallel called “TMZ,” about the paparazzi stalking a “minor celebrity.” Instead of Taylor’s songful celebration of a stalker-girl, Weird Al slyly sings, “They’re running ‘round / With their camcorders in the night / They lurk impatiently / In hope that they just might / See something real embarrassing you do.” The cosmetic effect of Taylor’s song, Taylor’s world, is broken, and her song’s moral universe is subtly mocked, even as Weird Al both sympathizes with Taylor’s paparazzi-plagued life while at the same time implying that her song’s ethos may well encourage and normalize just this kind of obsessive behavior in her fans. It’s hilarious. But more importantly, as a liberating solvent that washes away the pink glitter and cosmetic power of a pop cultural icon’s world-building, Weird Al’s work is a real service to the mental and moral liberty of any American weird enough to enjoy his songs.

Weird Al’s work is a real service to the mental and moral liberty of any American weird enough to enjoy his songs.

With his latest albums, Alpocalypse and Mandatory Fun, Weird Al has taken aim at shattering not only the pop cultural cosmetic effects of the likes of Taylor and other pop stars on the soul of America, but he’s taken aim at the most powerful cosmos-makers, narrative weavers, and psychological operatives, namely government and media propagandists. At the same time, Weird Al is trying to mock us Americans back into a better, more moral way of life. In Alpocalypse, he parodies the vapidity of “It’s a Party in the USA” with his song “It’s a Party in the CIA,” wherein he mocks the careless recklessness of meddlesome intelligence operatives in coup attempts, assassination plots, torture, and “a better dental plan than the FBI.” As a humorous and catchy meme to remind Americans that they may be too party-focused and pleasure-seeking to notice that their intelligence services have, perhaps, lost their way, the song is genius. It shatters the cosmetic effect of claims that our national security apparatus is hunky dory.

He’s taken aim at the most powerful cosmos-makers, narrative weavers, and psychological operatives, namely government and media propagandists.

In Mandatory Fun, Weird Al parodies the Foo Fighters with a song called “My Own Eyes.” The song begins with a ludicrous list of things seen on the internet: “I saw a mime get hacked to death / With an imaginary cleaver / I saw an old man’s final breath / I watched him die from Bieber Fever / I saw these diabetic chicks / In an abandoned 7-Eleven / I watched them snorting pixie sticks / While they were belching Stairway To Heaven.” It is a song about the defiling nature of the internet, where every awful thing is seen. It is also a song about the credulity of people who think that what they saw on the internet was definitely true, as the song repeats “with my own eyes” again and again. Finally, the song ends, not with what the singer saw on the internet but with the internet suddenly entering our eyes, taking over our hearts, and spilling out into real life. Now it is his own “guinea pig” that he uses “to play hacky-sack” and his own “neighbor’s kid” who “sold weapons-grade plutonium” and “human organs in trade.” Monkey see, monkey do. The moral is simple, subtle, and sustained.

Weird Al is trying to release his listeners from the spell of cosmetic capture cast by the ultimate trio of image makers: the government, the media, and the internet. Mocking pop culture icons and their pop songs is just the means to that end. And he uses the ultimate weapon to do it: Weird. The word “weird” means a supernatural power that can overcome fate or destiny. Weird Al’s brand of Weird isn’t the stuff of witchcraft. No, it’s the stuff of wit and mockery, exciting our reason — the most supernatural thing about every ordinary human being — to laugh at error and pride. Weird Al has helped many to see beyond the cosmic horizons set by MJ and Taylor; let’s hope he can help us all to see beyond the spell-binding trifecta of government, media, and the internet — what we used to call, aptly, the web.

Dr. Matthew Mehan is the Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Government for the Van Andel Graduate School of Government of Hillsdale College’s D.C. campus.