I Love Rocky Road

Album: "Weird Al" Yankovic (1983)
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Songfacts®:

  • A parody of Joan Jett & The Blackhearts' 1981 hit "I Love Rock And Roll," "I Love Rocky Road" is about a man's passion for marshmallow-laden chocolate ice cream. The song appeared on Weird Al's self-titled debut album, which also boasted the food-themed "My Bologna," a riff on The Knack's "My Sharona."
  • This is a significant entry in Weird Al's catalog because it connected him with Rick Derringer, who went on to produce six of Yankovic's albums. Derringer, who was a member of the '60s band The McCoys (of "Hang On Sloopy" fame) before going solo in the '70s, was managed by Jake Hooker of the Arrows - the British group who originally recorded "I Love Rock And Roll." When Yankovic sought permission from the songwriters to record his parody, Hooker suggested he get together with Derringer, and the rest is history.
  • In his early parodies, Al wasn't too concerned with trying to make his spoofs sound like the originals. In this case, he shook up the instrumentation, replacing the rock-guitar break with an accordion solo. He also enlisted the talents of "Musical" Mike Kieffer, who used his hands to create fart noises as a percussive element. Kieffer also added an air of flatulence to "Stop Draggin' My Car Around" and "Another One Rides The Bus."
  • For the music video, Weird Al changed up the tavern setting of Jett's clip to an ice cream parlor (where his mentor, the Los Angeles radio host Dr. Demento, cameos as a cashier). Instead of rocking out to a drunken crowd, the rocky-road addict climbs on the counter as a group of dessert junkies wave their cones at him in solidarity. In reality, the scoops were made of mashed potatoes instead of ice cream, so they wouldn't melt under the studio lights.

    Mimicking Jett's enthusiastic "Ow!" (exclaimed twice in the song after propositioning a guy she has her eye on), Al yelps once because he has an ice-cream headache and another time because a boy bites his ankle.
  • In the video, Al wears an I Love Lucy pin on his leather jacket - a reference to "Ricky," his Ricky Ricardo-themed parody of Toni Basil's "Mickey."
  • When asked what she and her bandmates thought of the parody, Jett replied, "We didn't love it."
  • This was included on the 1993 compilation The Food Album, which earned a Gold certification in the US for 500,000 copies sold. Yankovic, however, thought the release was unnecessary and just a quick money grab for his record label. He reflected on his feelings about the album in 1999, saying, "I don't mind putting out actual Greatest Hits albums every decade or so - I realize the value in that. I just have a problem when the record company tries to make a quick buck by putting out albums like Songs That Al Did In The Key Of F#."

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