If you tuned in for last night’s first U.S. Presidential debate and your big takeaway was “we’re all doomed,” you’re not alone: beloved musician and comedian “Weird Al” Yankovic feels the same — and feels it so strongly that he has recorded a new song, titled “We’re All Doomed,” that positions Yankovic as the moderator at the debate, and writer/YouTubers the Gregory brothers songify some of the night’s most mind-numbing moments while pointing out that, even without the Trump/Biden showdown nobody wanted, things were already looking and feeling pretty dire this year, with a pandemic, a climate crisis, and headline-grabbing insanities like “murder hornets.”
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Yankovic has rarely touched on politics in his almost forty years in the public spotlight. In 2016, though, he did a song — “Bad Hombres, Nasty Women” — that tackled the 2016 election in a very similar fashion.
You can see it below. Assuming you have the stomach for it.
Yankovic’s last studio album, 2014’s Mandatory Fun, may prove to be the final one of his career — in part due to the rise of YouTube. The singer/songwriter, who made a name for himself as one of the greatest song parody artists in music history, has been open in the recent past about the fact that the time it takes to produce, complete, market, and release a fully-realized commercial album makes it difficult to do original parodies in the age of instantaneous entertainment. Mandatory Fun might have ended up with “Make It So,” for instance — a Star Trek: The Next Generation-themed parody of Frozen‘s “Let it Go” — but before he even finished writing the song, Yankovic checked online and realized that somebody had already come up with the idea and released it online.
In the time since Mandatory Fun, Yankovic’s releases have been box sets and live albums, with some new material showing up online. It’s likely that, long-term, any future albums he releases will be compilations of his online releases, released to make his hardcore fans happy that they can get their hands on a copy.
Last night marked the first of four debates that will help shape the remaining weeks of the U.S. Presidential race. Three of the four will pit Trump against Biden, with the fourth being a vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. Last night’s debate, in which both candidates insulted one another and President Trump was criticized for arguing and talking over his opponent and the moderator, has been covered as one of the worst, most disorganized debates in modern U.S. history. With a little luck, Yankovic will find it in his heart to make the next few a little more bearable, too.
