Living with a Hernia
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| “Living with a Hernia” | |||||
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| Single by "Weird Al" Yankovic from the album Polka Party! |
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| B-side | "Don't Wear Those Shoes" | ||||
| Released | October 21, 1986 | ||||
| Format | 7", 12" | ||||
| Recorded | August 4, 1986 | ||||
| Genre | Comedy | ||||
| Length | 3:16 | ||||
| Label | Scotti Brothers | ||||
| Producer | "Weird Al" Yankovic | ||||
| "Weird Al" Yankovic singles chronology | |||||
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| Polka Party! track listing | |||||
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"Living with a Hernia" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a parody of "Living in America" by James Brown. The song mostly describes the terrible "aggravation" and "back pain" that a hernia causes. The narrator himself claims to be suffering from a hernia, and that he's "Got to have an operation". Interestingly enough, this is not Yankovic's first 'Rocky Theme' parody. He has also performed a parody of Eye of the Tiger, the theme from Rocky III, called "Theme From Rocky XIII (The Rye Or The Kaiser)" in 1984.
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[edit] Track listing
The following tracks are on the single:
- "Living with a Hernia" – 3:16
- "Don't Wear Those Shoes" – 3:35
The promo single only contains "Living with a Hernia".
[edit] Single Cover
The single cover shows a man throwing a ball and getting a hernia in the process. The man throwing the ball, as well as the grid in the background are references to famous English photographer Eadweard Muybridge's famous sequencing photographs. Muybridge was the first person to successfully capture fast motion on film, using his device named the Zoopraxiscope.
[edit] Music video
The music video is a parody of James Brown's performance in Rocky IV, and was filmed on the same stage as the original. Several parodies and pastiches were purposely included in the video.
- When Yankovic is at the doctor's office, he is sitting next to a woman with a vise on her head, a man in an all-body cast, and a man who has been decapitated.
- Many spoofs of James Brown's dancing appear in the video: At one point he performs the splits and screams in pain. He often bends over, due to back pain. In one scene Al is shuffling left, but then starts sliding unnaturally, he then suddenly yells "Wait a minute!". Also, in the classroom, he twists one foot 360 degrees.
- A montage, during the mid-section of the song, shows Yankovic doing ordinary things (Playing basketball, going shopping, walking in the park, and bowling), however, due to the fact that his hernia is causing so much pain, he performs all of them extremely slowly. The entire montage is filmed in a fast motion style.
- Yankovic lists several common types of hernia (instead of U.S. cities). They include: incomplete, epigastric, bladder, strangulated, lumbar hernia, Richter's hernia, obstructed, inguinal, and direct.
- When Yankovic lists the last five common types of hernia, the viewers are shown a board with the title "Top 10 Hernias of the Week". This title is incorrect, as he only lists nine types of hernia.
- At the end of the video, Yankovic exclaims "I feel bad!" (a pun on James Brown's famous line, "I feel good!") He then becomes rigid, and falls down.
[edit] See also
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