Craigslist (song)

"Craigslist" is a song and single by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a style parody of The Doors, and contains lyrics inspired by postings at the online classified advertising service, Craigslist. Yankovic described the idea of the song coming about thinking how it would be "anachronistically weird" for Jim Morrison to scream about Craigslist. Yankovic opted to use Craigslist as an example of something big in both the popular culture and his own life, and spent time exploring its listings to compose the lyrics. The song was released shortly after the closure of the Michael John Anderson (Craigslist Killer) case, a factor Yankovic considered "unfortunate timing".

Former Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek was enlisted to recreate the music style for the song.

The single was the first of four new singles that were being released as part of the Internet Leaks EP. Craigslist was released digitally on June 16, 2009.

Composition

The various parts of the song were taken from various Doors songs, particularly from their first, self-titled album. As a "style parody", the song does not take directly from any single Doors song, but Yankovic transposed parts from various songs and combined them into what became "Craigslist". The intro guitar and organ riffs are similar to "Soul Kitchen" and "When the Music's Over", while the verses sound like "Twentieth Century Fox". And, there are discrete sections in the guitar solo similar to "When the Music's Over", "The End" and "Light My Fire". And the "snotty barista" section is a softer parody of the Oedipus complex from "The End".

Craigslist

Craigslist (styled craigslist) is a classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, items wanted, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.

Craig Newmark began the service in 1995 as an email distribution list to friends, featuring local events in the San Francisco Bay Area. It became a web-based service in 1996 and expanded into other classified categories. It started expanding to other U.S. cities in 2000, and now covers 70 countries.

In March 2008, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese became the first non-English languages Craigslist supported. As of August 9, 2012, over 700 "cities" in 70 countries have Craigslist sites. Some Craigslist sites cover large regions instead of individual metropolitan areas—for example, the U.S. states of Delaware and Wyoming, the Colorado Western Slope, the California Gold Country, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are among the locations with their own Craigslist sites.

Song

A song is a single (and often standalone) work of music intended to be sung by the human voice with distinct and fixed pitches and patterns using sound and silence and a variety of forms that often include the repetition of sections. Written words created specifically for music or for which music is specifically created, are called lyrics. If a pre-existing poem is set to composed music in classical music it is an art song. Songs that are sung on repeated pitches without distinct contours and patterns that rise and fall are called chants. Songs in a simple style that are learned informally are often referred to as folk songs. Songs that are composed for professional singers are called popular songs. These songs, which have broad appeal, are often composed by professional songwriters, composers and lyricists. Art songs are composed by trained classical composers for concert performances. Songs are performed live and recorded. Songs may also appear in plays, musical theatre, stage shows of any form, and within operas.