“Weird Al” Yankovic seems like a pretty down-to-Earth, chill guy – unless, of course, you try to kidnap his girlfriend, Madonna.
Al famously won’t even parody a musical artist’s song without first seeking their permission, even though he’s not legally required to do so. As his website states, Yankovic “feels it’s important to maintain the relationships that he’s built with artists and writers over the years” and “wants to make sure that he gets his songwriter credit (as writer of new lyrics) as well as his rightful share of the royalties.”
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This rule is the reason that Al never parodied any Prince songs, since the legendary singer rebuffed Al’s idea to turn “1999” into an infomercial-themed parody called “$19.99.” And Paul McCartney wasn’t cool with Al’s idea for “Chicken Pot Pie,” inspired by Wings’ “Live and Let Die,” purely due to his vegetarianism. Although that hasn’t stopped Al from playing it in concert.
The one time that one of Weird Al’s parodies caused any kind of negative reaction from the source musician was 1996’s “Amish Paradise,” which was a parody of Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise.”
“I ain’t with that. No. I didn’t give it any sanction,” Coolio said of the parody in an interview. “I think that my song was too serious. It ain’t like it was ‘Beat It.’ ‘Beat It’ was a party song. But I think ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ represented something more than that. And I really, honestly and truly, don’t appreciate him desecrating the song like that.”
As Al’s site notes, this was a “very unfortunate case of misunderstanding between Al’s people and Coolio’s people.” Al’s reps were allegedly told by Coolio’s label that the rapper had given “Amish Paradise” his approval, but he later clarified that he said “no” to the proposal.
According to Al, he was “shocked” to learn all of this, especially after the two had presented an award together at the American Music Awards.
The controversy even led Coolio to include an unflattering reference to Al in the song “Throwdown 2000.”
Al later revealed that the two eventually “patched things up and we were on good terms” And Coolio even seemed to change his mind about the parody in later years. “I shouldn’t have said shit. It actually made me look kind of stupid and small,” the late star admitted. “I’m not going to say I regret it, but I kind of do, I regret that shit. I should have just let it go.”
The Amish community, however, is likely still be pretty pissed off.
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