“Weird Al” Yankovic has been delighting audiences with his parodies of popular songs for decades, and later this year, will release a career-spanning boxed set. In preparation for its release, the singer has released his parody of The Beatles’ “Tax Man”, fittingly titled “Pac-Man”.
Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of “Weird Al” Yankovic, is set to be released in November, and will contain all 14 of Weird Al’s albums, as well as a bonus album containing unreleased and rare tracks, including “Pac-Man”. Fittingly, the set will be shaped like the accordion that he’s become known for.
Yankovic originally recorded “Pac-Man” in 1982, two years after the classic video game was first released. Speaking to Nerdist, he noted that he recorded the song in his garage, and sent it to Dr. Demento, the DJ who brought his music to a wider audience. The song played on the radio for a couple of weeks, only to receive “a cease and desist letter from some attorneys representing the Beatles. Dr. Demento couldn’t play it anymore.”
While a bootleg version of the song has made the rounds around the internet (you can find it on YouTube) in the years since, Yankovic noted it wasn’t until now that he and his manager received permission to release the song for the boxed set.
