Music Blog

Weird Al Wednesday – 2.12.25

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Hey! Welcome back to Weird Al Wednesday
featuring the comedic genius of Al Yankovic.
Hey, Al. This is one of my favorite parodies.
Have anything to say about that?

Parodying James Brown’s “Living In America” (from the film Rocky IV), Weird Al adapts The Godfather of Soul’s shrieks and dance moves to portray a man suffering from a painful hernia. This parody is so funny and also strangely educational about all matters hernia related. Weird Al’s video was filmed on the same stage as James Brown’s video. Al said “it was a real thrill to do James Brown. I’m a total non-dancer, but if I analytically dissect a dance routine, I can figure it out.” Choreographer Chester Whitmore was hired to accurately create the dance scenes featured in the video and worked tirelessly with Al to get the moves down just right. As we’ve seen before in Al’s videos, the writers of the original song are back co-writing the parody right alongside Al.

Al’s video is hilarious; I was laughing the whole time I was working on my post!

Let’s take a look at the original ….. “Living In America” by James Brown.

LYRICS

Yeah, uh
Get up, ow
Ow
Knock it out this
Woo

Super highways, coast to coast
Easy to get anywhere
On the transcontinental overload
Just slide behind the wheel
How does it feel

When there’s no destination that’s too far?
And somewhere on the way you might find out who you are, woo

Living in America (ow)
Eye to eye, station to station
Living in America
Hand in hand, across the nation
Living in America
Got to have a celebration

Rock my soul, huh, ow, huh

Smokestack, fatback
Many miles of railroad track
All night radio, keep on runnin’
Through your rock ‘n’ roll soul
All night diners keep you awake
On black coffee and a hard roll, woo

You might have to walk a fine line (say it)
You might take the hard line
But everybody’s workin’ overtime

Living in America (huh)
Eye to eye, station to station
Living in America
Hand in hand, across the nation
Living in America
Yeah, got to have a celebration, woo

I (I) live in America
Say it loud
I live in America
Wait a minute

You may not be lookin’ for the promised land
But you might find it anyway
Under one of those old familiar names
Like New Orleans (New Orleans), Detroit City (Detroit City)
Dallas, uh (Dallas), Pittsburgh, PA, (Pittsburgh, PA)
New York City (New York City), Kansas City (Kansas City)
Atlanta, woo (Atlanta), Chicago and L.A.

Living in America
Hit me
Living in America, yeah
I walked in and out
Living in America

I live in America
Say it loud, It’ll make you proud, uh
Said, I live in America
Hey, I know what it means, ah

Living in America
Eddie Murphy, eat your heart out

To the bridge, ay

Living in America
Hit me
I said now, eye to eye
Station to station
Living in America
Oh, so nice with your bad self (uh)
Living in America
Whoa, I feel good

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Charlie Midnight/Dan Hartman
Living in America lyrics © Reservoir Media Management, Inc, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc


And now here is “Living With A Hernia” by Weird Al.


LYRICS

Ow

Help me out, dig

All I do is grunt and groan
Hurts me to walk anywhere
Went to see my physician, Dr. Jones
He took my trousers off, told me to cough
Doctor says there ain’t nothin’ to discuss
He tells me any day I might have to wear a truss

Living with a hernia, ow
All the time, such aggravation
Living with a hernia
Gonna be my ruination
Living with a hernia
Got to have an operation
Feel so old, heh
Ow
Huh

Too much bad pain
Good God, drives me insane
Can’t run, barely crawl
Got a bulge in my intestinal wall
Walk real funny, bless my soul
Can’t play tennis and it’s hard to bowl, woo
You can’t even do the splits now (say it)
Better call it quits now
I’m sick of all this dancin’ anyhow

Living with a hernia, huh
Hurts me bad in a tender location
Living with a hernia
Had enough humiliation
Living with a hernia, yeah
Got to have an operation

Ow
I live with a hernia
Can’t get up, can’t bend over
Now I live with a hernia
Wait a minute
You may not be familiar with the common types
Of hernias that you could get
So just settle down, let me clue you in
There’s incomplete (incomplete)
Epigastric (epigastric)
Bladder (bladder)
Strangulated (strangulated)
Lumbar hernia (lumbar hernia)
Richter’s hernia (richter’s hernia)
Obstructed (obstructed)
Inguinal and Direct

Living with a hernia, rupture
I said it’s causin’ me such irritation
Living with a hernia, whoa
Have to have my medication
Living with a hernia
I feel bad

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Alfred Matthew Yankovic/Charlie Midnight/Dan Hartman
Living With a Hernia lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

While YouTubing, I found this ….. a reaction to Weird Al’s “Living With A Hernia”. It was too good not to include. Check this out:


That parody was so good! I sure hope no one suffered any injuries from laughing while watching this one. Management of this blog cannot be held responsible.

Thanks to you, my faithful fellow Weirdos, for coming back each Wednesday; everyone else has no idea what they’re missing! Come on back next week and embrace even more weirdness.

And remember ….. it’s good to have a laugh!

See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2025

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy, Nancy (The Sicilian Storyteller) The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk, and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

37 thoughts on “Weird Al Wednesday – 2.12.25”

  2. This is absolutely brilliant and one Weird Al rendition I didn’t know. Just watched the clip together with my wife and we both had good laughs. It’s truly remarkable how Al channeled James Brown. Also, to come up with the idea to transform “Living In America” to “Living With a Hernia” just is great. 🙂

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  11. hahaha It’s not even 7 a.m. here yet – too early to be laughing so hard. I like your ending disclaimer! This is such a funny one from Weird Al, and the reaction video ( I like watching these a lot), got me tickled just as much. Thanks for these! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. My great pleasure, Barbara! I just watched it again ….. still as funny as yesterday! I also love that guy’s reaction. He was right on when he called Al an “entertainer”; that’s exactly what he is. So glad you enjoyed this one, Barbara. I almost pulled it in favor of another video thinking this might have worked for Jim’s upcoming Song Lyric Sunday covers theme, but I decided to keep it.

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