Kill It At Karaoke With This Track-Selection Trick

If you don’t like karaoke, you will soon. The next time you’re dragged to grown-up singalong, you can bring down the house with one trick: Sing the Weird Al version instead.

1. Pick a Weird Al song that you know decently well.
2. (If you do not know a Weird Al song, wow. Learn one.)
3. Pull up the lyrics on your phone, just in case.
4. Cue up the original song.
5. Sing the Weird Al lyrics instead.

Whatever Weird Al parody you choose, you will find the original on the karaoke menu. Al doesn’t parody deep cuts. And because Al is such a careful songwriter, the parody lyrics will map extremely well over the original. That’s why his songs are so easy to memorise.

The right friends will sing along with you. They will be so proud to know the words. You will forge an unbreakable bond.

I prefer to do this trick without warning, which pays off in surprise, but the effect can be ruined if people start singing the original lyrics before you’ve made the reveal. Decide before the song starts whether to keep them quiet with a vague “I’m gonna try something different.”

Go and spread the Weird Al gospel to the world. May you live in an Amish paradise.