SamuraiFrog was posting his ambitious Ranking Weird Al Yankovic list. #6 was “Melanie (Original; from Even Worse, 1988). A little bit of Marshall Crenshaw, a little bit of the Hollies, but not a specific style parody.”
Hmm. I wrote: “Sometimes, if you want, please discuss the difference – musically – between parody and ‘in the style of’. I always thought Melanie was Marshall’s My Favorite Waste of Time.”
Mr. Frog: “I never knew about the Marshall Crenshaw song until I saw people talking about it on the YouTube comments; Wikipedia just lists it as an original. (Though they both sound like they borrow sounds from The Hollies.) (Which led me to Bette Midler’s version, which was unexpected.) I’m not sure what permutations anyone has used (if any) to justify it, but it really just sounds like a straight lift to me.”
Yeah, me too.
I have his first two albums. For those of you unfamiliar with Marshall Crenshaw, Wikipedia has some stuff. He’s only had one Billboard Top 40 ‘Pop’ hit, Someday, Someway [LISTEN], which hit #36 in 1982.
Two interesting facts:
“He got his first break in 1978, playing John Lennon in the musical Beatlemania, first as an understudy in New York, then in the West Coast company, then in a national touring company. He left the show in February, 1980.”
He portrayed Buddy Holly in the 1987 film La Bamba, which was about the singer Richie Valens, who died in a plane crash with Holly and the Big Bopper in February 1959.
(You’re) My Favorite Waste of Time:
Marshall Crenshaw; his 1979 home demo of the song was released as the B-side of Someday Someway
Bette Midler, which I also own
Crenshaw’s first album is pretty darn good. I was talking to my wife about the song (she remembered the Bette Midler version from when she was 7), and we both kind of figured Weird Al either ripped it off or had a “My Sweet Lord” kind of thing where he didn’t realize he was lifting it. I’d never seen that song called anything but an original (no style parody acknowledgement or anything), and didn’t know about the original until I was linking the video for my list. Weird stuff. But it did remind me I hadn’t heard Crenshaw’s first album in too long.