Because of Weird Al, I’ll never know the words to Don McLean’s “American Pie.” The first time I heard that melody was in Weird Al’s parody of the song, “The Saga Begins,” which focused on the Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace plot line instead of “the day the music died.” “My my, this here Anakin guy / may be Vader someday later, now he’s just a small fry” plays on a continuous loop in my brain. In the early-ish days of YouTube, my mom would cry-laugh while watching “White & Nerdy”—a spoof on “Ridin’ Dirty." There’s not a lot of space afforded to parody music these days, but Weird Al is important—he’s been doing this for more than four decades! by Jas Keimig