Courtesy of Roku
As the story of Alfred “Weird Al” Yankovic goes, on one fateful day, while he was a child in the ’60s, a traveling salesman stopped at his house and offered to sell his family an accordion—the instrument that would eventually catapult the comedian-musician’s legendary career.
After his father beat up the salesman, Yankovic’s mother bought the accordion for Al out of guilt. There was one condition: Al would have to practice in secret. When friends in high school later convince a sheltered, teenaged Al to go to a house party, he’s stunned to learn that his classmates are raving to the latest music sensation: polka. After some cajoling, he plays the accordion—the forbidden instrument, his darkest secret—for everyone, and the party goes wild.
Fed up with his father’s disapproval of his passion, Al leaves home to pursue a career in music. One afternoon while making bologna sandwiches for lunch, one of his roommates innocuously calls the lunchmeat “my bologna.” It’s a eureka moment for Al, who starts riffing on the phrase and, on the spot, comes up with the lyrics for the “My Bologna” parody of The Knacks’ 1979 hit, “My Sharona.”