Weird Al’s Hilarious “Mission Statement” Song & Video Mocks Corporate Buzzwords

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“Weird Al” Yanokvic skewers corporate buzzwords in this new song and music video.

He also skewers the now-tired (in my opinion) “hand writing on a white board” style of corporate videos, which I think is even more brilliant of him.


There are a few somewhat Lean-related buzzwords in the video… the last one looks like it has PDSA cycles drawn there :-)

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Funny stuff!

It's a little known fact that, during a dry spell in Weird Al's career, that he wrote a line of corporate parody songs for target markets like Lean and Six Sigma.

Songs included:

  • Lean It (parody of Michael Jackson's “Beat It”)
  • Girls Just Wanna Kaizen (parody of Cyndi Lauper's “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”)
  • My Six Sigma (parody of The Knack's “My Sharona”)
  • Born to PDSA (parody of Bruce Springsteen's “Born in the USA”)
  • What's Root Cause Go to Do With It? (parody of Tina Turner's “What's Love Got to Do With It”)
  • 5S Paradise (parody of Coolio's “Gangster's Paradise)
  • Smells Like Six Sigma (parody of Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit”)
  • Pretty Fly for a Sensei (parody of The Offspring's “Pretty Fly for a White Guy”)

OK, I made that all up. What Lean or Six Sigma parody songs would you write? Leave a comment to post your idea…


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10 Comments
  1. Daniel Zrymiak says

    Thank you for the entertaining post. I wish Weird Al would record Calibration (parody of Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration”).

    1. Mark Graban says

      Great addition, Daniel!

      “There’s some quality goin’ on right here
      A dedication to last throughout the years”

  2. Mark Graban says

    From Brian Buck via LeanMemes.com:

    “You Gotta Fight (For Your Right) to Kaizen”

    A parody of the Beastie Boys, of course.

  3. Brian Kerr says

    Who can forget that timeless ode to standard work, “Repeat It”?

  4. Mark Graban says

    The song “Sensei” would be a parody of Weird Al’s song “Ricky” which is a parody of Toni Basil’s song “Mickey.”

    Oh Sensei, you’re so fine
    You’re so fine, you blow my mind
    Hey Sensei…. Hey Sensei…

  5. Mark Graban says

    A parody of the great Pat Benatar song “Shadows of the Night”:

    We’re making shadowboards tonight,
    So baby 5s that cart, it’ll be all right
    Surrender all excess tools to me tonight
    They’ll profit in the end….

  6. Chad Walters says

    Turning Japanese!

    1. Mark Graban says

      Of course! Now we need parody lyrics that include terms like kamishibai and nemawashi.

  7. Brian Buck says

    Don’t forget Queen’s hit “Bohemian Nemawashi”

  8. Janet says

    This is funny because it also spoofs CSN, probably the most anti-corporate group ever.

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