What “Weird Al” Yankovic can teach us about career longevity

It’s hard for me to believe that the Fall of 2023 will mark my fifth year as a Project Coordinator. It’s not that I haven’t had certain job titles that long, or have never spent so much time working for one company; it’s more like I’m shocked that I’ve managed to work in a position this long that has challenged me to evolve as time has gone by.

As the days progress and I wonder for how long I’ll continue in my role I find myself looking for inspiration. More specifically people who have achieved career longevity in unexpected ways. This thought process brought me along to the one and only “Weird Al” Yankovic.

Be honest, you know who “Weird Al” Yankovic is. We all know who “Weird Al” Yankovic is. Love him or not there is no denying that he is without a doubt the most unlikely pop culture icon to have graced our zeitgeist in the past 50 years.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. From 1976 to 1979 Yankovic was simply a California kid going to college, working towards a degree in architecture and well on his way to a normal life; but he was also an accordion playing master, and he had a deep love of the unusual comedy featured on the Dr. Demento radio show. For fun he wrote silly songs and mailed them to his favorite DJ, and eventually Demento started playing them on the air.

The song that blew up for Al was “My Bologna”, a parody of then current (1979) hit “My Sharona” by the new wave band The Knack. After hearing it on the radio The Knack’s lead singer, Doug Fieger set up a meeting for Al with Capitol Records.

Now here is the interesting part. Capitol Records only signed Al to a six month contract. They really only wanted “My Bologna”. Granted during that six month stint Al was able to release two more songs, “Another One Rides the Bus”, and “I Love Rocky Road”, both bona fide Al hits to be sure, but none the less Capitol Records was done with him once the contract expired.

How could they do that you ask? How could Capitol Records be so dumb as to let Al Yankovic go? Essentially freeing him up to go Scotti Records and eventually become the man who would sell more comedy singles and albums than anyone in the history of the music business? Because back in 1979 making comedy music was nothing more than a novelty. No one, and I mean no one had made a long term career out of it.

The closest anyone ever came was Allan Sherman; arguably the original “Weird Al” Yankovic. Sherman was unlikely comedian and songwriter himself who from 1962 to 1966 cranked out several comedy music albums and will be forever immortalized for his classic “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh”. He was hugely popular, for a short time, and then he quickly flamed out as pop culture changed. He died in 1973 and had since become a cautionary tale of what happens when a record company bets too much on a novelty act.

From the 1970’s onward many acts had made funny songs and done well, but no one made it last. So how did “Weird Al” do it? More importantly what can his success teach us about going the long haul in our field of choice?

“Weird Al” Yankovic is an artist, actor, and comedian I greatly admire and respect. I’ve seen him live five times, own several of his CD’s, read books about him, and I’ve watched his cult classic film UHF more times than I care to admit. I even got to meet him a few years ago via a VIP pass to one of his concerts. I’m the proud owner of an autographed vinyl of Even Worse.

2024 will be the 45 year anniversary of “My Bolonga”, and yet while most artists would probably start thinking about slowing down at this point in their careers 2022 was probably Al’s most successful year yet to date. His film “The Weird Al Yankovic Story”, essentially a parody of music bio pics, was a huge hit on streaming and earned several awards. Meanwhile he headlined a sold out tour in which he featured deep cuts of his back catalogue of music. Do you know of any other music act that can do that? If The Eagles did a concert and didn’t play “Life in the Fastlane”, or “Hotel California” they’d get booed off the stage. Yankovic did a whole tour without playing one note of “Fat” or “White & Nerdy”, but filled with obscure tracks like “Dog Eat Dog” and “The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota” and the audience loved it. Trust me, I was there.

I could keep going but let’s get to it. What can we learn from Al? How can incorporate it into our own careers? Since I don’t want this article to be too long, I’ve boiled it down to three things.

Don’t be held down by your job title.

A common misconception about Yankovic is that all he ever did was write and record parodies of other people’s hit songs. That was never true. On the aforementioned Dr. Demento show Al’s first songs to be featured were tunes he wrote and performed on his trusty accordion by himself, most notably “Belvedere Cruisin’. Once he had the chance to record full albums, he was adamant from day one that his albums would at least be half full of his original work.

Basically put, he would be a “parody guy”, but he wouldn’t only be a “parody guy”; or more specifically “a novelty act”. He would build a body of work in which he could say was as much his own as it was parodies, and in turn show people that he had musical skills far beyond just “copy and paste”. Even as early as 1984 word of Al’s additional skills spread and he was asked by film director Amy Heckerling to write an original song for her comedy Johnny Dangerously. It would be the first of many times Al would be asked to write music for movies. This decision also paid dividends later for his several sold out tours that featured his original “deep cut” songs.

That’s not all. When as Yankovic’s videos started gaining steam on MTV he spent a lot of time watching the network to see if there was something more he could contribute. At the time MTV was still light on original content (hard to believe now) so Al decided to take a chance. He reached out to the network to see how they would feel about him writing some one-off TV specials, and working as an occasional guest host for some of their shows. MTV was happy to oblige.

Harnessing his love for the TV of his youth Yankovic filled his specials with comedy bits, odd ball acts, and fake celebrity interviews. This experience helped establish Yankovic as an all-around reliable actor, writer, director, and entertainer. Since those early days Yankovic has now made movies, written books, directed other people’s music videos, and acted in several TV shows over the decades. It would take an hour to list his voice over credits alone .

Basically Al could have just stuck to making parodies and performing live, that was all Scotti Records wanted of him. However Al knew he was capable of more than that, so he surveyed the landscape, found opportunities no one else even saw, and stepped outside his comfort zone on multiple occasions.

This connects nicely with the next lesson.

Move along with the culture. More importantly, evolve to meet the needs of your profession.

Yankovic realized early on that if he was going to continue doing what he loved he would have to keep an open mind and move along side by side with pop culture. Although he started around the same time as punk and new wave music was popular, a new network called MTV was gaining steam and it appeared to some that it may very well change the way people listen to music and view their favorite artists.

Whereas, at first, many musicians were either confused or apprehensive about music videos, Al saw MTV as an opportunity. New songs would now be forever tied to their accompanying music video. Although Al himself never thought of himself as an actor he had a deep love of the television of his youth, and figured he had nothing to lose by harnessing that love and trying his hand at making videos for TV. Plus this would help him get his music out to a wider audience since most radio stations were reluctant to play his songs at the time.

Most of the first music videos made in the early 1980’s were rough to say the least, and Al’s were no exception. His early attempts like “Ricky”, “I Love Rocky Road”, and “I Lost on Jeopardy” bear no resemblance to the original music videos they parodied, and look like they were made for about $5 a piece. Then a guy named Michael Jackson came along and changed everything.

Realizing Jackson was going to hit it big, and that he was an artist who was going to take making music videos way more seriously than everyone else, Yankovic decided to up his game as well. Parodying Jackson’s “Beat It” (“Eat It”), Yankovic and his newly formed backing band upped their music game by going all out to match the energy and style of Jackson’s big hit; but it was the video for “Eat It” that really took off.

Basically “Eat It” would be the first time Yankovic would painstakingly recreate the original video frame for frame. Rebuild the original sets, hire the same actors, even get some of the same crew; and within these videos the jokes would be much more subtle than before, making them ideal for repeating viewing since MTV was prone to showing the same videos over and over again.

It worked beautifully. “Eat It” was a huge hit. Yankovic was now selling albums instead of singles, and headlining his own tours. More importantly he learned how important it was to pay attention to the culture. Not to pick on the late Allan Sherman, but Al’s 1960’s counterpart flamed out because he refused to change with the times. Al would not make the same mistake. As the years moved along, he parodied 80’s acts like Madonna, The Dire Straits, Devo, and then moved along to the 90’s with Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sean Combs, and then into the 2000’s with Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, you get the idea.

The world changes, people’s tastes change, the way companies do business change, and with all that so should your job role. Embrace it. Keep an eye on the outside world. Moving forward and stumbling now and again is so much better than never moving at all.

Finally… be nice.

First off, if you read that your first thought was Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse, know that I love you.

Anyway. Throughout his whole career Al has worked with countless people from all walks of life. By his own admission when he first made it big he wasn’t sure how long it would last, so he worked hard and treated everyone with kindness and gratitude because for a time he thought the ride could end at any moment. What he ended up doing instead was built a reputation as easily one of the kindest men in show business.

How did this work for him in the long haul? For starters his gentle nature and humility made him the type of person everyone wanted to root for. In my lifetime I have gone from reading music articles denouncing Al as nothing more than an odd ball who got lucky, to countless websites, blogs, books, and even Rolling Stone magazine, praising Al has a comedic genius who earned his place as a pop culture icon.

No doubt this kindness served him well from the beginning. Always adamant that he get direct permission from any artist before parodying a song, and also being sure to thank that person in the linear notes. More importantly making sure the parody in question was never mean spirited or belittling the artist or the song.

Side note: Be a great communicator and always give credit where credit is due.

Going back to the “all walks of life” comment, one of many things that makes Al stick out is that the more you read about him the more you realize that Al has friends and co-workers across a wide spectrum of show business. This probably happened in part because he worked across different departments, so to speak, from day one.

He first became chummy with some of the fellow outside the mainstream comedians featured on the Dr. Demento show, and more importantly, stayed friendly with them. His old friend of 40 years, comedian Emo Phillips, opened for Al on his most recent tour.

His reputation for kindness and professionalism spread amongst the music world as well. Michael Jackson was so taken with Al after their phone conversation discussing “Eat It” that he made sure to let anyone who’d listen know that “Al isn’t out to hurt anyone”, thus making it easier for Al to keep getting permission from other artists over the years.

I could go on. The folks on MTV both in front of and behind the scenes loved him so much that even when his career was at lower points they were always happy to work with him. The many up and coming actors he worked with on his 1989 movie UHF were so grateful because he was willing time and time again to simply stand back and be the straight man so they could have their moments to shine. Thus even though the film bombed at the box office Al’s generosity as a performer set him for future acting success when a new generation of film makers came along itching to work with him.

Kindness goes a long way, but you can’t be kind to only the people in your lane; and you sure as heck can’t reserve your respect for people in positions “above” you, so to speak.

Now I’m not at all trying to start a “WWWAYD?” movement here, or pretend that Al is a perfect person. Obviously, I don’t know him personally, and no doubt he made mistakes in his career just like the rest of us. To me ‘Weird Al” Yankovic represents something that I have grown to admire, a person who took his original, essentially ambiguous job, and turned it into something amazing. He did it all with sheer bravery and determination, and his story is something I think we should all keep in mind as we move along with our own career path.