“Weird Al” Yankovic left the accordion at home.
He brought eight other musicians, and all nine of them wedged in behind NPR’s Tiny Desk for a four-song set that went up Thursday, Aug. 20, on NPR’s site and its YouTube channel. He closed on “The Saga Begins.”
That’s his 1999 retelling of Star Wars: Episode I, sung to the tune of Don McLean’s “American Pie”. Yankovic said he felt “naked” playing it without the band’s usual Star Wars costumes.
McLean gave him rare permission to rework the song. Then, in a 2025 Billboard cover story, he ranked the parody above his own record.
“When I heard his version, I thought it was better than the original,” McLean said.
Not every artist took it that way. Coolio feuded with him over “Amish Paradise” before the two made peace.
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He Played Only Originals in 2010
Yankovic had done this once before, in June 2010, when he focused on originals. Sixteen years went by.
“Apparently we did so great they invited us back 16 years later,” he joked.
The Set Opened on the Jungle Cruise
First up was “Skipper Dan,” a failed actor’s lament about the mind-numbing work of manning the Jungle Cruise. Yankovic crooned it over chunky guitar. The band clapped along.
Next came “eBay,” his rewrite of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way.” He spends it running down his online finds: a used pink bathrobe, an ALF alarm clock, William Shatner’s old toupee.
Yankovic admitted the third song was not a fan favorite or even a hit people ask for. He played it anyway. “Now You Know,” the closing credits number from Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, came with multiple fake endings.
Jamie Lee Curtis weighed in. Curtis, who counts Yankovic as a friend, wrote on Threads that the song she and her daughter Ruby love best is “an original composition,” and that she was excited to see it in the set.
She didn’t say which one. The set had two: “Skipper Dan” and “Now You Know.”
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