9 Musicians Who Refused to Let "Weird Al" Yankovic Parody Their Songs

For the past 40 years, "Weird Al" Yankovic has been churning out hit songs by putting his own, spoofy twist on other chart-toppers to come up with tunes like “Eat It,” “Like a Surgeon,” “White & Nerdy,” and “Amish Paradise.” While the First Amendment and fair use copyright laws mean that Yankovic doesn’t have to get permission from the original recording artists to record a parody song, out of courtesy and respect he always does. Which means that he has gotten the occasional “no,” as these nine artists prove.

1. PAUL MCCARTNEY

Weird Al wanted to parody the Wings song “Live and Let Die,” but Paul McCartney turned him down. “I wanted to do ‘Chicken Pot Pie,’ and Paul was a good sport,” Yankovic explained. “He said, ‘I would love for you to do this, but could you not make it about chicken because I’m a vegetarian. I don’t want to condone the eating of animal flesh.’” But “It wouldn’t work with ‘Tofu Pot Pie.’"

Weird Al still plays bits and pieces of the parody song during his live performances, but he has yet to get permission from McCartney to record it.

2. EMINEM

In 2003, Weird Al intended "Couch Potato" to be the first single off his then-new album, “Poodle Hat.” The song was a parody of Eminem’s Academy Award-winning song “Lose Yourself” from 8 Mile. While Eminem gave Weird Al permission to parody the song, the rapper denied him permission to use it as a single and be the center of a music video.

“Eminem was fine with me having the parody on my album but said he was afraid that a Weird Al video might detract from his legacy, that it would somehow make people take him less seriously as an important hip-hop artist,” Yankovic said in an interview.

In response, Interscope Records spokesman Dennis Dennehy said on Eminem’s behalf, “It’s an important personal piece of music for him, a piece of art. He doesn’t mind him doing the song, but he didn’t want to change kids’ visual perception on what that image was. He wanted to make sure the image would remain intact.”

3. PRINCE

Over the many decades of Weird Al’s career, Prince has been the one recording artist who has never let him parody one of his songs. It’s not for lacking of trying. He’s tried to do spoofs of “Kiss” and “1999” since the 1980s without success. “The only person who’s consistently said no has been Prince. I haven’t approached him in 20 years,” Yankovic told Access Hollywood in 2014. “He just wasn’t into the parody.”

4. JIMMY PAGE

While he’s a big fan of Weird Al’s music, guitarist Jimmy Page declined Yankovic permission to turn Led Zeppelin songs into a polka medley. However, Page did allow Weird Al to do an interpolation of “Black Dog” in Yankovic’s “Trapped in the Drive-Thru,” which is a parody of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet.”

Yankovic told the Toronto Sun, “It’s actually quite a coup that I was able to get Led Zeppelin to let me and my band do that little bit of ‘Black Dog’ in ‘Trapped In The Drive-Thru. They’re famous for not letting people do anything with their music.”

5. COOLIO

Although Weird Al received permission from Interscope Records to parody “Gangsta’s Paradise,” rapper Coolio didn’t give Yankovic consent to write the parody “Amish Paradise.” After the Grammy Awards in 1995, Coolio spoke out against the parody, “[I] ain’t with that … I think that my song was too serious … I really … don’t appreciate him desecrating the song like that … his record company asked for my permission, and I said no. But they did it anyway.”

According to Yankovic, it was all a misunderstanding: “Two separate people from my label told me that they had personally talked to Coolio … and that he told them that he was okay with the whole parody idea … Halfway into production, my record label told me that Coolio’s management had a problem with the parody, even though Coolio personally was okay with it. My label told me … they would iron things out—so I proceeded with the recording and finished the album.”

Since parody falls under fair use, “Amish Paradise” was recorded and became a smash hit in 1996. Years later, Coolio apologized to Weird Al about the misunderstanding surrounding the spoof. “I’ve since apologized to him,” the rapper said. “That was a stupid thing for me to do. That was one of the dumbest things I did in my career.”

6. MICHAEL JACKSON

Although Michael Jackson gave Weird Al permission to spoof “Bad” and “Beat It” into the parody songs “Fat” and “Eat It,” respectively, the King of Pop denied Yankovic consent to parody his 1991 song “Black or White.” “Michael wasn’t quite so into it, because he thought ‘Black or White’ was more of a message song, and he didn’t feel as comfortable with a parody of that one, which I completely understood,” Yankovic wrote in Rolling Stone. Though he never recorded the spoof “Snack All Night,” he does perform it live from time to time.

Fun Fact: Michael Jackson shares a co-writing credit with Yankovic on “Eat It.”

7. WEEZER

In 1996, Weird Al included a number of popular alternative rock songs into one polka medley called “The Alternative Polka.” He originally included a snippet of Weezer’s “Buddy Holly,” but then the band reconsidered. “‘Buddy Holly’ by Weezer was originally in ‘The Alternative Polka,’” says Yankovic on his website. “In fact, it was completely recorded, and we were about to do the final mix when we got a call from Weezer’s management—apparently the song’s writer, Rivers Cuomo, decided for whatever reason that he didn’t want his song in my medley after all, so at the very last minute (after the ‘special thanks’ had already been printed on the CD and cassette booklets) we had to physically cut the song out of the medley. I’m still kind of bummed about it—it sounded really cool.”

Yankovic later released an unmixed and unmastered version of the 23-second section online for free.

8. DANIEL POWTER

In 2006, Weird Al wanted to spoof Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” with the parody “You Had a Bad Date,” but the recording artist denied Yankovic permission to record it. At least at first. “And then literally the day before we went into the studio to record ‘White & Nerdy,’ we got a call saying he changed his mind and he wanted to do it after all,” Yankovic told the Toronto Sun. “And I had to inform him that the train had left the station.”

9. ATLANTIC RECORDS

After receiving James Blunt’s blessing to parody his hit song “You’re Beautiful,” Weird Al recorded and planned to release the spoof “You’re Pitiful” as the first single from his “Straight Outta Lynwood” album in 2006. However, Blunt’s record label Atlantic Records stepped in and denied Yankovic any use of the parody because they felt it might hurt James Blunt’s brand and public image. Weird Al later released “White & Nerdy,” a spoof of Chamillionaire’s “Ridin,’” as the first single instead and then released “You’re Pitiful” online for free.

“I have a long-standing history of respecting artists’ wishes,” Yankovic wrote to NPR. “So if James Blunt himself were objecting, I wouldn’t even offer my parody for free on my website. But since it’s a bunch of suits—who are actually going against their own artist’s wishes—I have absolutely no problem with it.”

February 7, 2016 - 6:00pm