Comedian ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic has said that he is sad that he never got the chance to parody Prince’s songs.
Yankovic who has in the past done parodies of Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain claims he had ideas lined up for ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, ‘1999’, ‘When Doves Cry’ and ‘Kiss’.
But the Artist Formerly Known As always turned him down. “It’s too bad. 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 explained.
“I had a parody of ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ that was about The Beverly Hillbillies. 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 dialling 1-800-something-1999.”
Prince may not have been a fan of Yankovic’s, but he claims that Michael Jackson loved his ideas.
He told People: “Michael Jackson wasn’t just cool about my parody of ‘Beat It,’ but he also loved my version of ‘Bad,’ which was ‘Fat.’ He even let me use the actual ‘Bad’ subway set for the ‘Fat’ video.
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“He was very supportive, which was huge with opening the doors with other artists. Because if Michael Jackson signed on, you couldn’t really say no.”
Prince’s family recently announced an official tribute concert in the late icon’s honour.
The concert will take place at the US Bank Stadium in the musician’s hometown of Minneapolis on October 13, with tickets going on sale next month. Performers are to be announced shortly, in batches.
Prince died at his Paisley Park complex in Minneapolis on April 21 from an overdose of prescription drugs. He was 57 years old.