Song of the Week: Nature Trail To Hell

"Nature Trail To Hell"
"Weird Al" Yankovic
from the album "In 3-D" (Scotti Bros., 1984)

There's perhaps no artist out there who was more likely to end up a one-hit wonder than "Weird Al" Yankovic. But somehow he beat the odds and not only released more than one album, but is still going strong almost 25 years later. Indeed, his career has outlasted those of quite a few of the artists whose songs he's parodied, and just last year saw the highest-charting album and single of his career.

One thing that goes unnoticed by most non-fans of Al is the fact that half of his material is original -- songs whose words and music are written solely by him. Here's one of the original tracks from his second album, and one that's perfectly suited for the Halloween season. It's about a part of American pop culture that hasn't gone out of style (at least not yet): the slasher film. This long, cartoonishly creepy movie trailer in the form of a song is great fun, complete with all the sonic staples of guts and gore ... howling wind, screaming victims, and werewolves in the distance.

One of the reasons for Al's longevity is probably the fact that he has the uncanny ability to stay plugged into what's going on in pop culture -- basically a requirement if your most well-known stunt is parodying other popular music artists. But there's also the simple fact of his talent: this may not be one of Al's better known original tunes, but for being so early in his career, it really showed that his gift for comedy music would serve him well for awhile to come.