Prince Denied Weird Al’s Every Request For Song Rights: Controversy!
Try as he might have, Weird Al Yankovic never landed a ride in Prince's Little Red Corvette.
The seasoned parody artist, who's famously spoofed songs by Alanis Morissette, Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga across a 40-year career, told People that most artists are flattered by his work (or at the very least, find it amusing). Prince, on the other hand, was never on board with Yankovic's gimmick, and routinely denied Weird Al the rights to his songs.
Now, given that the "Kiss" singer died earlier this year after an accidental overdose, that door seems permanently shut.
"It's too bad," Yankovic said. "I hadn't approached him in about 20 years because he always said no, but I had this fantasy that he'd come out with a new song, I'd have a great idea, he'd finally say yes and it would erase decades of weirdness between us. But that's obviously not going to be the case."
Yankovic added that he's already produced some proud work around Prince's catalog that'll never see the light of day.
"I had a parody of 'Let's Go Crazy' that was about The Beverly Hillbillies," he said. "And I wanted to do something funny with 'When Doves Cry,' and 'Kiss.' For '1999,' I wanted to do an infomercial where you could get anything you wanted by dialing 1-800-something-1999."
We can only wonder what would have come of a "Raspberry Beret" treatment...
Would you have wanted to hear a Weird Al Prince parody, or are you glad Prince shrugged each request off?
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