"Albuquerque" is the last song of "Weird Al" Yankovic

"Weird Al" Yankovic

Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...

's Running with Scissors

Running with Scissors (album)

Running with Scissors is the 10th studio album by "Weird Al" Yankovic, released on June 29, 1999. The album contains the hit single "The Saga Begins", a parody of Don McLean's song "American Pie".-Details:...

album. At 11 minutes and 22 seconds, it is the longest song Yankovic has ever released on any of his official studio albums.

With the exception of the choruses and occasional bridges, the track is mostly a spoken word narration about Yankovic's made-up life in Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...

, New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

, after winning a first-class one-way airplane ticket to the city. According to Yankovic, the song is in the style of the "hard-driving rock narrative" of artists like The Rugburns

The Rugburns

The Rugburns was an American musical group originally formed by Steve Poltz, "Dr." Robert Driscoll, and Gerald "Child" McMullin.-History:Starting as classmates at the University of San Diego, the group formed in the mid-1980s and began playing in the San Diego, CA area...

, Mojo Nixon

Mojo Nixon

Mojo Nixon is an American musician, known for playing psychobilly music...

 and George Thorogood

George Thorogood

George Thorogood is an American blues rock vocalist/guitarist from Wilmington, Delaware, United States, known for his hit song "Bad to the Bone" as well as for covers of blues standards such as Hank Williams' "Move It On Over" and John Lee Hooker's "House Rent Boogie/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One...

.

Song and lyrics

Yankovic set off to write the lengthy song, considering it as a final track for the Running With Scissors album. The long meandering story was not expected to be popular and instead Yankovic wanted to compose a song "that’s just going to annoy people for 12 minutes", making it feel like an "odyssey" for the listener after making it through to the end. Yankovic described writing the song as "free flowing", writing down a great deal of material he thought would be funny including previous ancedotes he had recorded, and trimming it down to form a lengthy "semi-cohesive story". The lyrics were too long to include in the liner notes for the album, though full lyrics were posted to Yankovic's website.

Recording and performance

At the end of the song (around 11:20, after the music ends), faint laughter can be heard in the background. As Weird Al says, "That’s Jim West

Jim West (guitarist)

James "Jim" "Kimo" West is a guitarist best known for working with the singer-songwriter "Weird Al" Yankovic. West auditioned for Yankovic, after being introduced by Steve Jay, and the two have worked together ever since...

 laughing – I thought it would be a good way to end the album. He’s cracking up because of the stupid chord he played at the end of the song."

Response

Contrary to Yankovic's belief that the song would not be popular, it was one of the most well-received songs from the album, and Yankovic incorporated the song as an encore to his tours. When performing this song live, Yankovic has been known to extend the song by listing off more types of doughnuts, including blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, boysenberry, loganberry, gooseberry, Halle Berry

Halle Berry

Halle Berry is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming...

, old-fashioned doughnuts and Nanaimo bar

Nanaimo bar

The Nanaimo bar is a dessert of Canadian origin popular across North America. The Nanaimo bar is a bar cookie which requires no baking, and is named after the West-Coast city of Nanaimo, British Columbia. It consists of a wafer crumb-based layer, topped by a layer of light vanilla or custard...

s (when performing in British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

), as well as Saskatoon berry

Saskatoon berry

Amelanchier alnifolia, the saskatoon, saskatoon berry, serviceberry, sarvisberry or juneberry is a shrub with edible berry-like fruit, native to North America from Alaska across most of western Canada and in the western and north central United States. Historically it was also called "pigeon berry"...

 donuts (when performing in Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

) and he has been known to start the song over completely after he "loses his train of thought." When performing this song live in Canada, Al is known to replace the dream job at Sizzler

Sizzler

Sizzler is a United States-based restaurant chain with headquarters in Culver City, California. The chain serves steak, seafood, and salad , as well as similar items.-History:...

 with one at Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons Inc. is a Canadian fast casual restaurant known for its coffee and doughnuts. It is also Canada's largest fast food service with over 3000 stores nationwide. It was founded in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario, by Canadian hockey player Tim Horton and Jim Charade, after an initial venture in...

, a Canadian doughnut shop.