Albuquerque (song)

For the Neil Young song, see Tonight's the Night (Neil Young album).

"Albuquerque"
Song by "Weird Al" Yankovic
from the album Running with Scissors
Released	June 29, 1999 (1999-06-29)
Recorded	October 15, 1998
Genre	Comedy rock spoken word hard rock rock
Length	11:23
Label	Volcano
Songwriter(s)	"Weird Al" Yankovic
Producer(s)	"Weird Al" Yankovic

"Albuquerque" is the last song of "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1999 album Running with Scissors. At 11 minutes and 23 seconds, it is the longest song Yankovic has ever recorded.

With the exception of the choruses and occasional bridges, the track is mostly a spoken word narration about a made-up person's life in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after winning a first-class one-way airplane ticket to the city. According to Yankovic, the song is in the style of the "hard-driving rock narrative" of artists like The Rugburns, Mojo Nixon and George Thorogood.

Writing

In a video on GQ where he broke down his most iconic songs, Yankovic said he had finished writing the song and needed to cut it down to song length, but then he decided "No! I'm not going to cut it down, I'm just going to do the whole thing!"

Yankovic set off to write the lengthy song, considering it as a final track for Running with Scissors. The long, meandering story was not expected to be popular and instead Yankovic wanted to compose a song "that's just going to annoy people for 12 minutes", making it feel like an "odyssey" for the listener after making it through to the end. Yankovic described writing the song as "free flowing," writing down a great deal of material he thought would be funny including previous anecdotes he had recorded, and trimming it down to form a lengthy "semi-cohesive story." The lyrics were too long to include in the liner notes for the album (it ends mid-sentence and goes into a written apology by Yankovic), saying that the listener will have to figure them out for themselves. The full lyrics were posted to Yankovic's website.

Plot

The song begins with Al talking about a traumatic childhood, living "in a box under the stairs in the corner of a basement" and being force-fed sauerkraut by his mother for his own health. Enraged, Al swears at the age of 26½ that he'll leave his mother's place, and by chance, wins a radio contest on the very next day, with the grand prize being a first-class one-way ticket to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

After an unpleasant experience on the flight, Al's plane crashes into a hillside, leaving him the only survivor as he was the only passenger who followed proper safety precautions. After crawling to Albuquerque over three days while carrying his heavy luggage, Al checks into a Holiday Inn, but disaster befalls Al again after a "big fat hermaphrodite with a Flock of Seagulls haircut'' barges into his room, fights him and steals his prized snorkel.

Al vows to bring his attacker to justice, but first decides to buy donuts. At the shop, he asks for many types of donuts and pastries, only to be told each one is sold out. He finally settles for a box of crazed weasels, which start to attack him. Running around town screaming for help, he meets a woman, Zelda; the two fall in love, marry, buy a house, and have children, but eventually break up after Al decides that he isn't ready for the commitment of joining the Columbia Record Club.

The break-up allows Al to "achieve his lifelong dream": a part-time job at the Sizzler. The job is eventful, and Al relays several amusing anecdotes before losing his train of thought, at which point, he circles back and says that the entire point of the song was to relay his hatred of sauerkraut. The song ends with Al telling the listener that even during an existential crisis, they can still take solace in the existence of a "little place called Albuquerque".

Recording and performance

At the end of the song (around 11:20, after the music ends), faint laughter can be heard in the background. As Yankovic says, "That's Jim West laughing - I thought it would be a good way to end the album. He's cracking up because of the stupid chord he played at the end of the song."

Reception

Contrary to Yankovic's belief that the song would not be popular, it was one of the best-received songs from the album, and Yankovic incorporated the song as an encore to his tours. When performing this song live, Yankovic has been known to extend the song, by listing off more types of donuts, listing more names "Zelda" calls Yankovic, not telling the "amusing anecdote" at first, and even starting the song over completely after he "loses his train of thought." When performing this song live in Canada, Al is known to replace the dream job at Sizzler with one at Tim Hortons, a Canadian doughnut shop. During the guitar solo of the third chorus, Yankovic sometimes introduces West eagerly, but West plays "Mary Had a Little Lamb" instead of the real solo. Yankovic acts disappointed, and West walks away acting ashamed. As of his 2022 tour, Yankovic stops the song after using the word "hermaphrodite" to acknowledge that the word was now considered a slur and that the song was a product of an earlier, more ignorant time.

The 2004 video game Doom 3 contains a thin reference to the song - an email in one of the in-game PDAs mentions a character whose arms and legs were dismembered by the "Albuquerck Capacitor", therefore giving him the nickname "Torso Boy".

Personnel

According to the liner notes of The Essential "Weird Al" Yankovic:

• "Weird Al" Yankovic – lead & background vocals, group vocals, hand claps
• Jim West – guitars, group vocals, hand claps
• Steve Jay – bass guitar, group vocals, hand claps
• Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz – drums, tambourine, group vocals, hand claps

See also

• List of songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic
• Shaggy dog story
• The King of Rock 'n' Roll, another song sometimes sought by this name.