Harman Patil (Editor)

Lasagna (song)

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B-side
  
"Velvet Elvis"

Format
  
7", 3"

Length
  
2:45

Released
  
May 27, 1988

Recorded
  
February 19, 1988

Genre
  
Comedy rock, Latin, Chicano rock

"Lasagna" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a parody of "La Bamba", a traditional song popularized by Ritchie Valens and Los Lobos.

Contents

Track listing

  1. "Lasagna" – 2:45
  2. "Velvet Elvis" – 4:27

Writing and release

When Yankovic began writing the song, he claimed:

My original thought for this was to record the entire song in Italian.

I was actually going through Italian phrase books and dictionaries until I realized that the humor would be lost on 99% of the audience, so I decided to do the whole thing in English but with kind of a bad Italian accent.

Under U.S. law, Yankovic can parody any song as long as he pays royalties to use the original music. However, as a personal rule, he asks for permission to maintain good relations with the industry. This song is an exception to that rule. Although it is a parody of the Los Lobos cover version, "Lasagna" marked Yankovic's first parody that did not require permission from an artist or a payment of royalties, since "La Bamba" is a traditional folk song that is not attributed to any specific writer.

The single was released exclusively in Japan as a mini 3" CD single.

Music video

There is no full-length music video for this single, though a shortened music video segment was shown in 1997 as a part of The Weird Al Show.

  • The video features a stereotypical Italian family, including an elderly woman, two children, a rather large man for "Cousin Luigi" and Yankovic (sans glasses) as the father.
  • When the line "A-don't you get any on ya, you sloppy pig" is sung, the elderly woman at the dinner table drops the lasagna into Luigi's lap.
  • After "Have-a more ravioli" is sung, two children catch ravioli in their mouth.
  • Near the end, lasagna is falling out of Luigi's mouth.
  • The elderly woman and one of the children fight over the lasagna near the end.
  • At the end, the family does a dance. First they simply wave from side to side with their hands on each other's shoulders while still seated. Then, they stand up from their chairs, which move off-screen, as does the table. Yankovic takes his plate of lasagna off the table. They all do a can can-type dance as confetti and balloons fall from the ceiling, and at the cheering section at the end, the others gather around Yankovic as he holds out his plate proudly.

    • Italian dishes mentioned in "Lasagna"

    Yankovic names many Italian dishes in "Lasagna", including:

  • Lasagna
  • Spaghetti
  • Calzone
  • Minestrone
  • Marinara
  • Zucchini
  • Linguini
  • Fettuccine
  • Ravioli

    • In pop culture

    This song plays on a radio in a cave scene in the live-action/animated Yogi Bear movie.

    References

    Lasagna (song) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA