Close but No Cigar

"Close but No Cigar"
Song

Close But No Cigar is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic, released on his album Straight Outta Lynwood. It is a style parody of the band Cake. It talks about a man who keeps finding attractive and near-ideal women, but then there is always one (likely overlookable) thing wrong with them and thus dumps them saying, "Close, but no cigar." A music video was released on Straight Outta Lynwood's DualDisc, created by John Kricfalusi & Katie Rice.

Lyrics

The man in the lyrics describes three women: Jillian, who was "sweeter than aspartame", but who was dumped because she always used the word "infer" when the correct term would be "imply"; Janet, with a "body hotter than a habanero", who unfortunately also owned a copy of Joe Dirt on DVD; and Julie, a "world famous billionaire bikini supermodel astrophysicist" who nevertheless fell short of perfection because she had an earlobe that was just a little tiny bit too big.

Every time the narrator leaves one of the women, he contrasts their relationship with an activity that presumably doesn't need complete accuracy: horseshoes, hand grenade throwing, and government work.

Style parody of...

• While this song is supposed to be in the general style of Cake, Al borrows much of the music from only three of Cake's songs:
• "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" contributed the end chorus (most notably the backing "Nah Nah Nah" part). It should as be noted that the lyrical theme for "Close But No Cigar" is also very similar to "Short Skirt/Long Jacket".
• "Opera Singer" contributed the guitar part.
• "Love You Madly" contributed the bass line and the the backing trumpet solo.

All these songs are from Cake's Comfort Eagle album.

Music Video

John Kricfalusi directed this video for Weird Al. Cigarettes the Cat from John's cartoon Weekend Pussy Hunt played a big role in the video, similar to how John's character Jimmy the Idiot Boy played a major role in the music video John made for Björk's song I Miss You. Katie Rice lent a helping hand by drawing and animating the girls and the cats in the crowd sequence. Kricfalusi, an animation historian, included a sequence that includes some caricatures of both Tweety Bird and Mickey Mouse. Kricfalusi included his signature gross out humor in sequences of a where the female's nude buttocks in a bathtub, "a big, fat slobbering pig" blowing up, a cat eating a woman's face and a cat urinating in a very uncleanly urinal. There were several other instances of crude humor throughout the video.

Notes

• Every girl the narrator dated had a name that started with the letter "J".

See also

• List of songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic
• Straight Outta Lynwood
• John Kricfalusi's music video