How ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Convinced Kurt Cobain to Let Him Parody ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’
When “Weird Al” Yankovic started working on his seventh album, Off the Deep End , in 1990, his career wasn’t in the best place. Neither his 1989 film, UHF , nor its soundtrack did well financially, and the songwriter was in desperate need of a hit. Having parodied Michael Jackson successfully in the past with “Eat It” and “Fat,” he recorded a parody of Jackson’s “Black or White” entitled “Snack All Night.” Due to the serious nature of the original song, Jackson wasn’t comfortable with it, and Yankovic’s version was scrapped. Enter Nirvana. “I was such a fan of the band,” Yankovic said during a 2012 retrospective with SPIN . “I heard Nevermind and I thought, ‘Oh this is really great. I wish it were popular enough for me to do a parody…but that’s never going to happen!’” Before long, Yankovic’s wish came true, and he got right to work on “Smells Like Nirvana,” a parody of the band’s breakthrough hit, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The song would be his most successful song since “Eat It” w...