| Running with Scissors | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by "Weird Al" Yankovic | ||||
| Released | June 29, 1999 | |||
| Recorded | 1998–1999 | |||
| Genre | Comedy, folk rock, zydeco, punk rock, rap rock, alternative rock, industrial rock, polka, third wave ska, ska punk, rap rock, nerdcore, outlaw country, swing, jazz, alternative rock, spoken word | |||
| Length | 49:44 | |||
| Label | Volcano | |||
| Producer | "Weird Al" Yankovic | |||
| "Weird Al" Yankovic chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Running with Scissors | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Rolling Stone Record Guide | [2] |
Running with Scissors is the 10th studio album by "Weird Al" Yankovic, released on June 29, 1999. The album contains the hit single "The Saga Begins", a parody of Don McLean's song "American Pie".
Contents |
Running with Scissors is the first of "Weird Al" Yankovic's albums to boast multimedia content. When the CD is placed in a CD-ROM drive, one can browse through the files and play a QuickTime movie file containing 14 minutes of footage from the Disney Channel concert special "Weird Al" Yankovic: (There's No) Going Home. This was not included on CDs released in New Zealand.
The lyric sheet for this album, under the credit for the song "Intergalactic" by Beastie Boys, misspells the name Horovitz as Horowitz.
Yankovic often includes the number 27 somewhere in his songs, videos, album art, and memorabilia. For example, he wears a 27 on the cover of this album, 27 photos are included in the photo gallery on the "Weird Al" Yankovic Live! DVD, and the narrator of "Albuquerque" leaves his mother's basement at 26½ (rounding to 27) years old. This motif began as several coincidental appearances of the number, but Yankovic began intentionally using it after the original incidents were pointed out to him.
The CD booklet contains the complete lyrics to all but one of the album's songs; due to the extreme length of the closing song "Albuquerque", not all of its lyrics fit on the final panel of the booklet. Instead of continuing with the "Albuquerque" lyrics, the end of the booklet breaks them off mid-sentence and concludes with an apology from Al, in which he states that there was no way he could have fit the rest of the song's lyrics on the existing booklet and that he "should have used a smaller font or a bigger piece of paper or something". The album also omits the background dialogue functioning as a sound effect in the song "Jerry Springer".
This is the first cover featuring Al's "new" look (longer hair, no moustache, and no glasses) after he had LASIK eye surgery to correct his vision. He is shown running on the track at Santa Monica City College.
| Track | Title | Length | (Style) Parody of | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "The Saga Begins" (Don McLean, Yankovic) | 5:27 | "American Pie" by Don McLean | Tells the entire story of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace from the point of view of Obi-Wan Kenobi. |
| 2 | "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder" (Yankovic) | 3:25 | Original - a Zydeco genre style parody. | The woes of having a girlfriend who's obsessed with the singer/songwriter of the band Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder. |
| 3 | "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi" (D. Holland, Yankovic) | 3:02 | "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)" by The Offspring. | About a hip rabbi. |
| 4 | "The Weird Al Show Theme" (Yankovic) | 1:14 | Original | Theme song to Al's 1997 CBS morning show, The Weird Al Show. |
| 5 | "Jerry Springer" (E. Robertson, Yankovic) | 2:46 | "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies | About The Jerry Springer Show and its completely inane titles, events, and absurdities. |
| 6 | "Germs" (Yankovic) | 4:38 | Style parody of Nine Inch Nails | Details of the narrator's fear of germs. |
| 7 | "Polka Power!" | 4:21 | Polka Medley | A polka medley featuring:
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| 8 | "Your Horoscope for Today" (Yankovic) | 3:59 | Style-parody of Third Wave Ska. | A song mocking horoscopes, predicting humorous, unpleasant outcomes. The song features Tavis Werts on trumpet, and Dan Regan on trombone (A former and current member respectively of the third-wave ska band Reel Big Fish). |
| 9 | "It's All About the Pentiums" (Deric Angelettie, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Sean Jacobs, Kimberly Jones, Lau, Christopher Wallace, Jason Phillips, David Styles) | 3:34 | "It's All About the Benjamins (Rock Remix)" by Puff Daddy. | An early example of a nerdcore hip-hop song about a computer geek proclaiming his technological superiority over others. |
| 10 | "Truck Drivin' Song" (Yankovic) | 2:27 | Style parody of C.W. McCall | A detailed account of a truck-driver doing what he does best while at the same time cross-dressing and worrying about its accompanying concerns. Said to be inspired by the Lumberjack Song from Monty Python's Flying Circus. |
| 11 | "Grapefruit Diet" (Steve Perry, Yankovic) | 3:30 | "Zoot Suit Riot" by Cherry Poppin' Daddies. | About an overweight person's experiences on a radical new diet consisting of only grapefruits. |
| 12 | "Albuquerque" (Yankovic) | 11:23 | Style parody of The Rugburns | Sounds very much like "Dick's Automotive" by the Rugburns. Similar to "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie, the song follows a longwinded and tangential storyline, with occasional chorus breaks, just to convey a simple point. Also contains a bit based on a Monty Python sketch, the Cheese Shop Sketch. |
Album
| Year | Chart | Position[3] |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 | The Billboard 200 | 16 |
| Top Canadian Albums | 16 | |
| Top Internet Albums | 3 |