While Tim Minchin is busting out profound piano jams slamming the marriage equality plebiscite, his long-standing U.S. equivalent Weird Al is making slightly more lighthearted tunes about his country’s latest spat with North Korea, and the looming threat of nuclear attacks.
Appearing on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the parody singer busted out his piano accordion for a lively new track titled ‘Please Don’t Nuke Us, North Korea’, and he almost manages to make the idea of nuclear war with a Communist state feel, well, quaint.
“Would you annihilate us if you had the chance?/That’s such an anti-social thing to do/You’ve got us crapping our collective pants/May I suggest you take it down a notch or two?” he sings, backed by a lively brass band.
His closing statement makes a pretty solid case, too: “Why in the world would you kill Tom Hanks?/’Cause nobody doesn’t like Tom Hanks.”
Weird Al’s main contention, really, was the apologetic admission that the U.S. really doesn’t think about North Korea all that much (until they start waving their weapons around, or Trump starts a Twitter beef), so North Korea should really just chill out.
John Oliver’s intro, meanwhile, was a little bit more sombre.
“We have two nuclear-armed leaders who are accustomed to issuing empty threats to impress their own people,” he said, “and they are now currently goading each other towards armageddon. Which is absolutely terrifying.”
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Hopefully this solves all of our problems.
Weird Al Yankovic’s new song ‘Please Don’t Nuke Us, North Korea’
