from “Weird Al” Yankovic:
My new single “Craigslist” is out today. In case you haven’t heard it yet (SPOILER ALERT!) it’s an original song in the style of The Doors about… well… Craigslist.
To explain some of the pictures that I’ve been tweeting… last month I drove up to Sausalito to visit a recording studio owned by Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads, Modern Lovers)… where I recorded the keyboard parts for “Craigslist” with original Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek! It was quite a thrill and an honor to work with Ray. We spent that afternoon eating Mounds bars and guacamole and listening to Ray tell stories about his recent South American tour — it was amazing.
Anyway, back to present day… As I always implore you, if you’re at all inclined to buy this single, please do it this week — it’d be so cool to get this thing to chart. We came THIS CLOSE to getting “Whatever You Like” on the Billboard chart (and I’m certain we would have done it if our release date hadn’t been bungled)… but since this new single is available at all the digital retailers simultaneously, I think it’s got a real shot. And by the way, I just checked — none of my “original” songs have ever cracked the Billboard Hot 100. So if enough people (legally) download “Craigslist” — and it actually charts next week — well, that would be a career first and a real personal accomplishment for me. (Maybe someday people will even stop asking, “Hey, did you ever think about writing your own songs?”) Anyway, if you’ve got a buck and change just lying around somewhere not doing anything — please consider giving it to iTunes or one of those other fine Internet portals that sells mp3s.
And of course the “Craigslist” video is out as well. Liam Lynch did an amazing job directing it. We wanted to create something which looked like the kind of typical low-budget music video that The Doors themselves might have made in the 60’s — lots of random, psychedelic stock footage… and me in leather pants trying to look like a smoldering, damaged poet. You can buy it on iTunes, or just watch it for free on YouTube… heck, you can even watch it in HD!
And oh yeah, I’m doing a live chat on Twitter and Ustream just a little bit later today. I’ll be on from 5PM to 6PM Pacific time (8PM to 9PM Eastern). You can watch the broadcast just by clicking on this Ustream link… you don’t have to sign up for anything or do anything. BUT… if you want to participate and ask questions, you have to be signed up on Twitter. Just tweet me a question with the hashtag #WeirdAl at the end of it. That way it’ll show up on my screen — and perhaps I’ll answer it! We’ll see how this goes today… if my head doesn’t explode by the end of it, maybe I’ll do these broadcasts for the rest of the Internet Leak releases as well.
Okay, I’m done promoting myself now. Thanks for listening!
Al