"Like a Surgeon" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic

"Weird Al" Yankovic

Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...

. It is a parody of "Like a Virgin

Like a Virgin (song)

"Like a Virgin" is a song by American singer Madonna from her second album of the same name. It was released on November 6, 1984 by Sire Records, as the first single from the album. The song appears on the greatest hits compilation albums The Immaculate Collection and Celebration...

" by Madonna

Madonna (entertainer)

Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

.

1985 release

The following tracks are on the single:

1. "Like a Surgeon" – 3:27
2. "Slime Creatures from Outer Space" – 4:23

The promo single only contains "Like a Surgeon".

1985/1993 re-release

The following tracks are on the single:

1. "Like a Surgeon" – 3:27
2. "King of Suede
   King Of Suede
   "King Of Suede" is a song which "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded for and released on his second major-label album, "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D. Its lyrics, which Yankovic wrote, are a parody of those of "King of Pain" by The Police...
   
   " – 4:12

Writing and development

Although Yankovic refuses to use parody ideas from other people, Madonna is partly responsible for "Like a Surgeon". Madonna asked one of her friends how long it would take until Yankovic satirized her song "Like a Virgin" as "Like a Surgeon". This friend was a mutual friend of Al's manager, Jay Levey. When word got back to Yankovic, he decided it was a good idea and wrote the song. This is the only known time that Yankovic has gotten a parody idea directly from the original artist.

Music video

The music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

, which takes place in a hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

, can be considered an extension of the parody. Several features of "Like a Virgin"'s promotional video - famously set in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 - are mimicked: shots of Yankovic singing on a moving gurney

Gurney

A gurney, known as a trolley in British medical context, is the U.S. term for a type of stretcher used in modern hospitals and ambulances in developed areas. A hospital gurney is a kind of narrow bed on a wheeled frame which may be adjustable in height. For ambulances, a collapsible gurney is a...

 are substituted for footage of Madonna on a canal boat, and both videos feature a lion at the beginning.

• The video was shot in an actual hospital that had recently gone out of business.
• In the beginning of the video, a voice pages "Doctor Howard, Doctor Fine, Doctor Howard". This is a nod to the Three Stooges
  Three Stooges
  The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
  
  ' short Men in Black
  Men in Black (1934 film)
  Men in Black is the third short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.-Plot:...
  
  (which also took place in a hospital and featured incompetent doctors).
• At the beginning of the video, Yankovic steps into the ICU
  Intensive Care Unit
  thumb|220px|ICU roomAn intensive-care unit , critical-care unit , intensive-therapy unit/intensive-treatment unit is a specialized department in a hospital that provides intensive-care medicine...
  
  , and sees a person who has flatlined. At first he doesn't realize it, but then he begins banging on the heart rate monitor
  Heart rate monitor
  A heart rate monitor is a personal monitoring device which allows a subject to measure his or her heart rate in real time or record his or her heart rate for later study...
  
   and finally resorts to hitting the person in the chest, which causes the patient's heart to start again.
• The heart monitor also beeps to the beat of the song's intro.
• As the music begins, there is a person on a bed that is being pushed along who has feet at both ends of the body.
• One of the X-ray
  X-ray
  X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
  
  s that Yankovic shows is of a man with a nail in his head, and another X-ray shows a monkey.
• A male lion
  Lion
  The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
  
   walks across the hallway of the hospital.
• The sinks are being used for washing hands, feet, and pots and pans.
• When Yankovic says he was "last in the med class," several doctors are seen preparing tools for operation. Some of those tools are: a butcher knife, a razor, hedge clippers and a blowtorch.
• In the operating room, the game Operation
  Operation (game)
  Operation is a battery-operated game of physical skill that tests players' hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills. Originally made by Milton Bradley, and currently made by Hasbro it has been in production since 1965, the year in which the game was invented by John Spinello.The game is a...
  
  can be seen hanging on the wall.
• The same lion appears in the operating room.
• The table of operating tools includes a hand drill, crayons, a rubber frog, drinking straws, a thin razored saw, salt and pepper, a blacksmith tool, a troll doll, kitchen knives, a corkscrew, and various others.
• Many of the operating instruments used are unorthodox: chainsaw
  Chainsaw
  A chainsaw is a portable mechanical saw, powered by electricity, compressed air, hydraulic power, or most commonly a two-stroke engine...
  
  s, drill
  Drill
  A drill or drill motor is a tool fitted with a cutting tool attachment or driving tool attachment, usually a drill bit or driver bit, used for drilling holes in various materials or fastening various materials together with the use of fasteners. The attachment is gripped by a chuck at one end of...
  
  s, blowtorches, etc.
• While doing a heart transplant
  Heart transplantation
  A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplantation, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease. As of 2007 the most common procedure was to take a working heart from a recently deceased organ donor and implant it into the...
  
  , Yankovic accidentally drops the heart. A nurse subsequently slips on it.
• When Yankovic sings the line "Better give me all your gauze nurse," a nurse hands him two proper operating instruments, then a hamburger.
• When the nurse is giving Yankovic the scalpel
  Scalpel
  A scalpel, or lancet, is a small and extremely sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, and various arts and crafts . Scalpels may be single-use disposable or re-usable. Re-usable scalpels can have attached, resharpenable blades or, more commonly, non-attached, replaceable...
  
  , she accidentally cuts his finger off.
• The IV
  Intravenous therapy
  Intravenous therapy or IV therapy is the infusion of liquid substances directly into a vein. The word intravenous simply means "within a vein". Therapies administered intravenously are often called specialty pharmaceuticals...
  
   has a fish swimming in it.
• When Yankovic goes to operate on the heart, he is shown with a large drill. Also, a target can be seen on the patient's chest.
• Yankovic removes a patient's operation cap to reveal a lobotomized
  Lobotomy
  Lobotomy "; τομή – tomē: "cut/slice") is a neurosurgical procedure, a form of psychosurgery, also known as a leukotomy or leucotomy . It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain...
  
   brain.
• The lobotomized patient is reading the Midnight Star, the titular tabloid from Yankovic's earlier song "Midnight Star."
• After Yankovic gives the patient the anaesthetic mask, a nurse in the background is seen putting on the mask, and then fainting.
• A football
  American football
  American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
  
   player can be seen in the "nurse huddle" near the middle of the video.
• During the "It's a fact, I'm a quack" verse, Yankovic is seen pulling objects out of the patient's body such as: a heart, an automotive combustion air filter, an accordion toy, a line of colored-tissue cloths like people see in the circus, and a rabbit.
• When the line "My patients die before they can pay" is sung, Yankovic and a group of his nurses are seen operating, but the video zooms in to reveal that they are actually extracting money from a wallet.
• A Madonna lookalike is seen as a nurse in the video (see the single artwork). Another lookalike turned up in his video for "Perform This Way
  Perform This Way
  "Perform This Way" is a song parody by American musician "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a parody of "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga. The lyrics are told from the point of view of Gaga and describe her performance style and fashion sense...
  
  "
• Yankovic dances like Madonna near the end of the video, parodying scenes from her videos of "Burning Up
  Burning Up
  "Burning Up" is a song by American singer-songwriter Madonna from her self-titled debut album. It was released as the album's second single on March 9, 1983, in some countries as a AA side single with "Physical Attraction"...
  
  " and "Lucky Star" (with the camera at one point focusing on his bellybutton as it does Madonna's) as well as "Like a Virgin". Also, when Yankovic is dancing in the hallway near a sign that says "X-Ray", he swings his right arm back and hits another nurse reading a newspaper, and falls unconscious.
• One of the monitors features a clip from George of the Jungle
  George of the Jungle
  George of the Jungle was an American animated series produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, who created The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The character George was inspired by the legend of Tarzan. It ran for 17 episodes on Saturday mornings from September 9 to December 30, 1967, on the American TV...
  
  . The theme song for this show was covered by Yankovic on the Dare to Be Stupid
  Dare to Be Stupid
  Dare to Be Stupid is the third studio album by "Weird Al" Yankovic, released in 1985. The album was one of many produced by former The McCoys guitarist Rick Derringer...
  
  album, which also included "Like a Surgeon".
• One of his patients has a sign that reads "27", and in the background a sign reads "Now Serving: 27". This, along with a 27 that appeared in "This Is the Life", is considered to be the beginning of Yankovic's recurring 27 joke.
• When the verse "I can hear your heart beat... For the very last time" is sung, Yankovic falls flat on his back, and remains there for the remainder of the video.

Live performances

For the 1990 Blond Ambition Tour

Blond Ambition Tour

The Blond Ambition World Tour was the third concert tour by American singer-songwriter, Madonna. The tour was launched in support of her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer, and the soundtrack, I'm Breathless. The tour reached North America, Europe and Asia. It was a highly controversial tour,...

, Madonna re-invented "Like a Virgin" with a middle-eastern arrangement and risqué, and ultimately infamous, choreography. Yankovic ultimately decided to parody her performance (a bit less risqué): when played live in concert, the song features Yankovic rolling around on a hospital bed that is placed in the middle of the stage while keyboardist

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

 Rubén Valtierra

Rubén Valtierra

Rubén Valtierra is the keyboardist best known for working with "Weird Al" Yankovic. The two met at the Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary special in October 1991. Shortly after, Yankovic invited him to join his band as a touring keyboardist, and they have worked together ever since...

 belly dance

Belly dance

Belly dance or Bellydance is a "Western"-coined name for a traditional "Middle Eastern" dance, especially raqs sharqi . It is sometimes also called Middle Eastern dance or Arabic dance in the West, or by the Greco-Turkish term çiftetelli...

s next to him. This version of "Like a Surgeon," often called the "Like a Surgeon (Truth or Dare Version)" was performed in concert by Yankovic for a few tours.

Chart positions

Chart (1985)	Peak Position
Australian ARIA Singles Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...	19
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...	47