written by Al Yankovic

produced by Rick Derringer

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With the far too young Allan Sherman having departed in 1973 at

the age of 48, it would take another couple decades, though

Lynwood, California’s Alfred Matthew Yankovic would indeed

become the new American king of novelty and parody songs. Sure,

novelty music had existed since the early eras of the 20th century.

But anyone who knows Al—even if they’re not a fan—has to admit that he’s taken a normally very ephemeral art form and elevated it to whole new levels of not only durability, but also renown. Now, in the digital WWW age, anyone can put themselves on YT and perform their own song parodies—or any other form of music—to varying degrees of instant exposure. But “Weird Al” Yankovic definitely paved the way for new novelty artists to have the courage for their craft.

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Al was born in Lynwood on October 23rd, 1959, was a straight-A student, valedictorian of his high school class, and before the parody bug bit, was actually working towards an architecture degree. He’d been playing the accordion since the day before his seventh birthday, and starting changing the words to popular songs to amuse classmates. Around the time Al became a teenager, he discovered the nationally syndicated Dr. Demento Show on the radio, and was exposed to novelty music. These wonderfully bizarre little ditties inspired Al to start writing his own funny songs and sending them to Dr. Demento on cassette. In ’76 Dr. Demento played one of Al’s recordings for the first time. As Al kept sending in songs and Dr. D. played them, his popularity grew. At the end of the ’70s, Al parodied The Knack’s “My Sharona” into “My Bologna,” resulting in his first modest hit. The Knack’s Doug Fieger urged label Capitol Records to sign Al. It was his first record deal, but a year later, Capitol decided Al was an essential one-hit wonder, and removed him from their roster.

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In 1980, Al made Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” into “Another One Rides The Bus,” sending it too to Dr. Demento, making it the radio show’s biggest hit ever. Around the same time, Al was realizing just how much he absolutely loathed working in architecture. He was earning average grades, and yet, without a lasting record deal just yet, decided to graduate and collect his degree. He made more parodies of current songs in 1981 and ’82, as well putting together a band, amid countless record company rejections. Finally, in ’82, a small CBS-based label called Scotti Bros. (named after Tony and Ben Scotti) signed Al, and released his self-titled debut a year later.

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Al worked as fast as he could through the rest of the ’80s writing and putting out new material, releasing another album almost every year. With the help and approval of Michael Jackson, he had his first big hit in 1984 with “Eat It” (“Beat It”). The next one came in 1985, a Madonna parody—“Like A Surgeon” (“Like A Virgin”)—in fact suggested by Madonna herself. This was also the year Al wrote what would become his first (and only) feature film. It was green-lit by Orion Pictures and shot in the summer of ’88. 1988 was the year Al did his second Michael Jackson parody (“Fat,” the parody of “Bad”) for his next, much-needed hit.

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This entry is for Al’s theme song to his film, UHF (ultra-high frequency). It’s of course worth noting that while he was always known for the parodies, from the very beginning Al wrote as many original songs (the words and music) and included them on his records. The biggest songs on the albums—and first released singles—always led off, and for the most part, a pattern followed: parody, original, parody, original... and then most of his Al-bums too bore a polka medley, of a batch of current songs done up-beat polka style. Theme song “UHF” was an original composition, while the film’s parody attraction was a Dire Straits spoof, “Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies” (thank their lawyers for that goofy title). Music videos were made for both, back in the day when each Weird Al record spawned one or two singles and videos. Everyone including the studio had high hopes for UHF, and so... naturally, they were a bit disappointed when while making back the budget, it bombed at the box office.

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So here’s yet another movie that bombed, but since has garnered some substantial cult status. It and the soundtrack popped out in July 1989. The soundtrack contains 13 tracks, 6 of which are from the movie. To round it out into a full album, 7 more—including three additional parodies and a polka medley—were included as well. Hence the title: UHF Original Motion Picture Soundtrack And Other Stuff. The “Money For Nothing” music video was embedded right into the middle of the movie, earning itself some actual approval from critics who didn’t like the film. Such critics would argue that making records and videos was Al’s strength, and what he should stick to. “Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies” the video was pretty standard for a parody video. But as Al always took advantage of doing when making videos for original songs, he got much more creative and productive making the “UHF” theme song video.

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“UHF”’s video was interspersed with scenes and still shots from the movie, and performance parts by Al and his band, parodying a score of artists and bands throughout. It was the most involved music video he’d made to date. The performance parts are spoofs of Guns ’N Roses, George Michael, Robert Palmer, Prince, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, ZZ Top, Billy Idol, The Beatles, INXS and Randy Newman. Coincidentally, while most of Al’s songs up to this point were about 3 minutes long, the UHF soundtrack concluded with one of the songs not in the film, but almost 7 minutes long—“The Biggest Ball Of Twine In Minnesota”—his epic of the ’80s, just before they ended.

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Now, one more note about the theme song itself. On the soundtrack, the 5-minute theme song heard over the film’s closing credits is side 1, track 6. When “UHF” was released as a single, the single version was the shortened music video version, close to 3 and 3/4 minutes. (While the short/music video version appears on Al’s Permanent Record box set and Greatest Hits II, I’m afraid I cannot find it on YT, and so there won’t be a link to it. But if you watch the music video, it’s the same version.) However, on the soundtrack, the 5-minute version fades out towards the end, where in the movie’s end credits, it does not fade out, but goes on a bit longer, and slows to a final note. Being, well, me... I wanted this full movie version, and so here is yet another DVD rip to capture that. The audio remains satisfactory. Even if I’m only providing samples on the site, I felt that was something too worth explaining. Finally, many instances of cover art are harder to locate than others, including in this case Al’s “UHF” single. I did find a decent image of its cassette cover art, so that’s what I’ll be including below.

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full soundtrack version

music video

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Al’s official website