OFF THE DEEP END

'''Off The Deep End''' is the seventh album by "Weird Al" Yankovic, released in 1992. This is also Al's first self-produced album, after six albums with Rick Derringer. The album cover is an elaborate parody of the Nirvana album ''Nevermind'''s cover (see 1992 in music). The lead-off song, "Smells Like Nirvana" is a parody of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and the hidden track "Bite Me" is a pastiche of the hidden track that appeared on ''Nevermind'', "Endless, Nameless".
To date, "Off the Deep End" is Al's CD with the most number of American singles. The number stands at five. (Even though "I Can't Watch This" and "The White Stuff" were never commercially released.)

Contents

Track listing

Personnel

Production

Miscellanea

Charts

Track listing

Track	Title	Length	(Style) Parody of	Description
1	"Smells Like Nirvana"	3:42	"Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana	Parody of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", poking fun at the original song's ambiguous and unintelligible lyrics.
2	"Trigger Happy"	3:46	Style parody of The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean	About a man who uses firearms. Additionally, its chorus resembles that of the Dave Clark Five song "Glad All Over".
3	"I Can't Watch This"	3:31	"U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer	Parody of MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" (which sampled the background instrumentals of Rick James's "Superfreak"), about various bad television shows.
4	"Polka Your Eyes Out"	3:50	Polka medley	A polka medley including the following songs: ★ "Cradle Of Love" by Billy Idol ★ "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega ★ "Love Shack" by The B-52's ★ "Clarinet Polka" (Public domain) ★ "Pump Up The Jam" by Technotronic ★ "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. ★ "Unbelievable" by EMF ★ "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe ★ "Enter Sandman" by Metallica ★ "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground ★ "Cherry Pie" by Warrant ★ "Miss You Much" by Janet Jackson ★ "I Touch Myself" by Divinyls ★ "Dr. Feelgood" by Mötley Crüe ★ "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice ★ "Ear Booker Polka" by "Weird Al" Yankovic
5	"I Was Only Kidding"	3:31	Style parody of "h-a-t-r-e-d" by Tonio K.	About a declaration of love that was a complete joke.
6	"The White Stuff"	2:43	"You Got It (The Right Stuff) by New Kids on the Block	The singer expresses his love for the filling that appears between Oreo cookies.
7	"When I Was Your Age"	4:35	Style parody of Don Henley	Rock song, with the singer telling his child how he never had it as good as he does, but takes it to exagerant lengths.
8	"Taco Grande"	3:44	"Rico Suave" by Gerardo	About a narrator's visit to a fictional Mexican restaurant. Cheech Marin does a brief Spanish monologue in the song.
9	"Airline Amy"	3:50	Original	About an airline stewardess the singer adores. He sees signs of affection in her actions, when she is really just doing the expected duties of her job.
10	"The Plumbing Song"	4:08	Parody of Milli Vanilli's "Baby Don't Forget My Number" and "Blame It on the Rain"	The Narrator suggests a fictional plumber to a friend.
11	"You Don't Love Me Anymore"	4:01	Style parody of James Taylor.	A soft, acoustic ballad, about a girlfriend who did numerous exaggerated and mostly deadly things to the singer and his obliviousness to their extent. Although the singing is in the style of James Taylor, the music video is a style parody of "More Than Words" by Extreme.
12	"Bite Me"	Approx. 0:06	Inspired by Nirvana's hidden track, "Endless, Nameless"	Six seconds of cacophony, played after ten minutes of silence between this track and "You Don't Love Me Anymore." Inspired by Nevermind's hidden track, "Endless, Nameless." Later CD pressings by Volcano omit the track and the ten minutes of silence.

Personnel

★ "Weird Al" Yankovic - accordion, keyboards, vocals, background vocals

★ Brad Buxer - synthesizer

★ Alisa Curran - background vocals

★ Jim Haas - background vocals

★ Steve Jay - bass, background vocals

★ Tommy Johnson - tuba

★ Jon Joyce - background vocals

★ Warren Luening - trumpet

★ Cheech Marin - vocals on "Taco Grande"

★ Gene Morford - background vocals

★ Peggy Newman - background vocals

★ Joel Peskin - clarinet

★ Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz - percussion, drums

★ Carmen Twillie - background vocals

★ Julia Waters - background vocals

★ Luther Waters - background vocals

★ Maxine Waters - background vocals

★ Oren Waters - background vocals

★ Jim West - banjo, guitar, background vocals

★ Jerry Whitman - background vocals

Production

★ Producer: "Weird Al" Yankovic

★ Engineer: Tony Papa

★ Arranger: "Weird Al" Yankovic

★ Overdubs: Marlene Aragon, Edith Fore, Neil Ross, Beau Weaver

Miscellanea

★ Polka Your Eyes Out is the only polka medley to date which appears on one of Al's greatest hits albums. It is also the polka medley with the most songs included in it.

★ When "Bite Me" is slowed down about 800%, there is a hidden song inserted backwards. This was discovered in 2004, and the song was determined in 2006 to be "Tears Of The Earth" by David Hallyday, which was also released under the Scotti Bros. label.

★ The album cover (as well as the liner photos) is a parody of the famous Kirk Weddle photograph of infant Spencer Elden for Nirvana's album ''Nevermind''. Yankovic even went so far as to employ Weddle himself for the photo shoot.

Charts

'Album'

Year	Chart	Position
1992	The Billboard 200	17