Running with Scissors (album)

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
Bad Hair Day (1996) Running with Scissors (1999) The Saga Begins (2000)
Singles from Running with Scissors
"The Saga Begins" Released: June 24, 1999 "It's All About the Pentiums" Released: August 4, 1999 "Polka Power!" Released: September 26, 1999 "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi" Released: November 22, 1999

Professional ratings
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".

Details

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.

Cover art

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.^{[citation needed]}

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 listing

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 "Closer", "Mr. Self-Destruct", and "Terrible Lie" by Nine Inch Nails	Details of the narrator's fear of germs.
7	"Polka Power!"	4:21	Polka Medley	A polka medley featuring: "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger "Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)" by Pras, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Mýa "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" by the Backstreet Boys "Walkin' on the Sun" by Smash Mouth "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba "Ray of Light" by Madonna "Push" by Matchbox Twenty "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind "The Dope Show" by Marilyn Manson "MMMBop" by Hanson "Sex and Candy" by Marcy Playground "Closing Time" by Semisonic "W.A.Y. Moby Polka by "Weird Al" Yankovic
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.

Personnel

• "Weird Al" Yankovic - accordion, keyboards, vocals, background vocals
• Kim Bullard - keyboards
• Tom Evans - saxophone
• Steve Jay - bass, background vocals
• Thomas "Snake" Johnson - tuba
• Warren Luening - trumpet
• Joel Peskin - clarinet
• Dan Regan - trombone
• Bill Reichenbach Jr. - trombone
• Marty Rifkin - pedal steel
• Tom Sauber - fiddle
• Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz - percussion, drums, background vocals
• Lee Thornberg - trombone, trumpet
• Rubén Valtierra - keyboards
• Tavis Werts - trumpet
• Jim West - banjo, guitar, background vocals

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position[3]
1999	The Billboard 200	16
	Top Canadian Albums	16
	Top Internet Albums	3

References

1. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/album/r422384/review
2. ^ Brackett, Nathan; Christian Hoard (2004). The Rolling Stone Album Guide. New York City, New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 893. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8. 
3. ^ Billboard charts at allmusic