Why You Won’t Hear A Weird Al Yankovic Parody Of Prince’s Music Anytime Soon

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During a visit to the Howard Stern Show this morning, Weird Al Yankovic was asked about his sort of pseudo feud with Prince. Being the kind of guy he is, Yankovic was hesitant to say anything disparaging about the late musical genius, though he did admit that he had reached out to his people about a half-dozen times requesting to parody his music, revealing that he had specifically wanted to cover “1999,” “Kiss,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” and “When Doves Cry” among others.

“And he’d never give a reason, like ‘no, because’ — it was always just ‘no’ or a non-answer,” Yankovic elaborated. When pressed by Howard that — hey, now that he’s dead — why not go for it, Yankovic unequivocally states that the book is closed.

Yankovic also opened up about the famous rumor about not being able to look Prince in the eyes at the American Music Awards one year. “I got a telegram from his office,” he said, “It wasn’t a personal thing I don’t think, because I was talking to some of the guys from Night Ranger, and they were like, ‘yeah, we got the same telegram!’ ”

Prince may have been a mysterious guy in both life and death, but if there’s one thing we know, it was that he was probably not a fan of Weird Al, but definitely not a fan of Night Ranger. You can listen to the full interview segment here:

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