…and Al sticks it right back!
Actually, this is kind old news, but a response to an earlier posting where I posited that “Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody of James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” (called – naturally – “You’re Pitiful”) would be on his new album, Straight Outta Lynnwood was deemed inaccurate, so I went into research mode. It made sense that it’d be on there, after all, he’s made the song available as a free download on his site, so I figured it was intended as a teaser for the upcoming disc.
Yeah, not so much.
Isn’t it amazing what a haircut and a shave can do for a guy?
(Yes, we’re serious. This really is “Weird” Al Yankovic.)
Although Blunt himself gave the go-ahead for the cover, according to Yankovic in an E-mail interview with NPR, Blunt’s label – Atlantic Records – quashed his plans to put it on the forthcoming album.
“The legality in this case is somewhat moot,” Yankovic wrote NPR. “James Blunt could still let me put it on my album if he really wanted to, but he obviously doesn’t want to alienate his own record company… and my label (Volcano) could release the parody without Atlantic’s blessing, but they don’t really want to go to war with another label over this. So really, it’s more of a political matter than a legal matter. I have a long-standing history of respecting artists’ wishes, so if James Blunt himself were objecting, I wouldn’t even offer my parody for free on my Web site. But since it’s a bunch of suits — who are actually going against their own artist’s wishes — I have absolutely no problem with it.”
Word.
