What's your process like? Are there songs where you're like 'I just have to do that one'? Is it ever a struggle?
Well, I start with a list of possible candidates. I go through the Billboard charts, I listen to the radio, I keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening online and I make a master list of songs that I think would be reasonable targets. Then I'll go down that list and do variations on a theme. I'll think, 'What are all the possible ways I could go with this song to make if funny? What are the puns based on the title? What are the directions I can go?'
I'll generate ideas, and 99 percent of those ideas are horrible. I have no problem coming up with ideas, but good ideas are hard to come by. When I do find a good idea, then I'll start riffing on concepts based on that idea, and come up with pages and pages of notes based on that. When I came up with the idea for "Word Crimes" I thought, "That's great, because I'm pretty obsessed with grammar anyway." I'm always correcting peoples' grammar. In fact I've done some videos for YouTube where I'm correcting road signs and making the grammar better, on the highway and in the supermarket. "Twelve items or fewer," that kind of thing.
from http://www.npr.org/2014/07/12/329873481/weird-al-yankovic-on-parody-in-the-age-of-youtube
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