Albuquerque (song)
| "Albuquerque" | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by "Weird Al" Yankovic from the album Running with Scissors | |||||||
| Released | June 29, 1999 | ||||||
| Recorded | October 15, 1998 | ||||||
| Genre | Comedy rock, spoken word, hard rock | ||||||
| Length | 11:22 | ||||||
| Label | Volcano | ||||||
| Writer(s) | "Weird Al" Yankovic | ||||||
| Producer(s) | "Weird Al" Yankovic | ||||||
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"Albuquerque" is the last song of "Weird Al" Yankovic's Running with Scissors album. At 11 minutes and 22 seconds, it is the longest song Yankovic has ever released on any of his official studio albums.
With the exception of the choruses and occasional bridges, the track is mostly a spoken word narration about Yankovic's made-up life in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after winning a first-class one-way airplane ticket to the city. According to Yankovic, the song is in the style of the "hard-driving rock narrative" of artists like The Rugburns, Mojo Nixon and George Thorogood.
Yankovic set off to write the lengthy song, considering it as a final track for Running with Scissors. The long meandering story was not expected to be popular and instead Yankovic wanted to compose a song "that's just going to annoy people for 12 minutes," making it feel like an "odyssey" for the listener after making it through to the end. Yankovic described writing the song as "free flowing," writing down a great deal of material he thought would be funny including previous ancedotes he had recorded, and trimming it down to form a lengthy "semi-cohesive story." The lyrics were too long to include in the liner notes for the album (it ends midsentence and goes into a written apology by Yankovic), though full lyrics were posted to Yankovic's website.
The song starts by Al talking about his childhood with a paranoid mother who force-feeds him sauerkraut until he reaches age "Twenty six and a half". After hearing about a contest on the radio in which contestants "guess the number of molecules on Leonard Nimoy's butt". He wins the contest, only being off by three. The grand prize is a first class ticket to Albuquerque.
During the flight, one of the engines burn out and the plane crashes into a hillside and explodes, killing everyone except him. He finds himself crawling, while carrying all of his belongings, until he reaches his destination.
He rents a hotel, taking his time to relax until someone knocks. Although he asks multiple times who it is, he receives no answer. When he finally opens the door himself, he's greeted by a "hermaphrodite with a Flock of Seagulls haircut and only one nostril", who rushes in and grabs his prized possession: his lucky snorkel. The two engage in a fight, only for the man to escape with his snorkel. He vows to stop at nothing until the man is brought to justice, but then decides to buy a box of donuts first.
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Wikipedia