Weird Al takes on Craigslist with The Doors

Geek humor abounds.

Parody singer "Weird Al" Yankovic poked fun at Segway riders three years ago with his rap song "White and Nerdy."

His latest single "Craigslist" skewers the people who can be found swapping wares and scoring dates on the classifieds ads site. (While there's a verse about the popular "missed connections" feature on Craigslist, there isn't otherwise mention of the current prostitution controversy that the site's been dealing with.)

The video and song are a professed homage to The Doors. Ray Manzarek, the former band's keyboardist, was enlisted to play on the track. And while the music itself will sound unmistakably familiar to Doors fans, Yankovic asserts it isn't a takeoff on a specific song,

The lyrics, by contrast, are unlike anything Jim Morrison would have dreamed up:

Got a trash can of Styrofoam peanuts, you can have em for free
You can drop by on the weekend and pick em up from me
But the trash can ain't part of the deal
Only givin' you the peanuts, get real

"Craigslist" is available for sale as a single now and will appear on an album that comes out next year.

The Doors parodying is spot-on. But the video and lyrics unfortunately aren't as funny as the over-the-top "White and Nerdy," which became a mild viral sensation on YouTube in 2006.

More importantly: I've e-mailed Craigslist founder Craig Newmark to gauge his reaction. He responded: "The thing's pretty funny!"

This post was updated at 11:48 a.m. PT with comment from Craig Newmark.

[karpenterskids]

I have to agree with you...the lyrics aren't nearly as funny as his previous singles...and I have no idea why there's a girl dancing suggestively in the background!

It doesn't fit with the theme of the song at all...not even really with the "missed connections" part.

The part I found the funniest was the "packing peanuts", though. The rest of the song was simply mediocre.

[ryancorradini]

@karpenterskids: The dancing girl and the rest of the weird elements in the video are, according to Al, in reference to the style of old Doors videos.

Personally I thought it was pretty funny. They even "hacked" the official WeirdAl.com site to look like a parody of Craigslist. Gave me a few chuckles anyway, which is what Al does best.

[CrimsonCantab]

I agree with ryan. Weird Al can be both extremely outrageous or extremely subtle. "Craigslist" seems to lean heavily toward the subtle, as I found myself laughing mostly at the Doors references, and not so much at the lyrics, whereas "White and Nerdy" was very in-your-face funny and appealed to a larger audience.

[jvearley]

Ignoring the lyrics, the music is great. Perfect Doors style. I don't remember any 'videos' from the 60s, but the background is spot on to the old light shows at the Fillmore and Winterland. Thanks Al, great job.

[Perry_Clease]

It wasn't bad and I am impressed that they got Ray Manzarek to play along

[banteron_dotmac]

So Weird Al asserts that this song isn't a takeoff on a specific song? Give me a break. If anyone doesn't hear "When the Music's Over" in this riff then they should take the cotton out of their ears.

[macslut]

I think what he means is that it's not just one specific song, but many of The Doors' songs. There's a lot of Rider on The Storm, Hello I Love You, and L.A. Woman in there as well.

I really like the music, but I wish the lyrics were more of a tribute than the parody it is.

[shywolf982]

This sounds like a tribute to the Doors, more than a parody. And actually, the song is quite nice, per se, just doesn't have the disruptive humour of other Weird Al songs. As someone pointed out before, he's being very subtle.

[Random_Walk]

...what, no mention of Weird Al's skewering of eBay a few years back?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYokLWfqbaU

[C0mmanderB0nd]

As those who live in glass houses don't throw stones, no shock Al took the high road on poking fun of those trolling for "adult" services......

[Kainchild]

Nice post Caroline. Glad to see Weird Al still making songs.

[GlennAllen]

Has he done Facebook yet? (How could that be anything but funny... and weird.)

[Slaten]

I find it odd that he avoided totally slamming craigslist. It doesn't seem to be his style to avoid things. There is so much controversy surrounding craigslsit that he could have made a seriously tounge in cheek funny song about it. I'd like to see him take on facebook or myspace next, then maybe a song about craigslsit losing the online classifieds battle to newer sites like addanything.com or walmartclassifieds.com or something like that.

[Orion Blastar]

Embedding disabled by request. I cannot see the video.

Did Youtube violate some RIAA law?