Confounds the Science. An anti-Trump song set to Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence.
Excellent!
Oh boy. Look, I agree with the politics, but artistically this is sophomore work. You wanna compare it to something like “National Brotherhood Week” or “So Long, Mom” for razor wit?
No way in hell.
Lehrer wrote original works, albeit in a trite musical style. Sherman & Yankovic took non-original songs and just altered the lyrics. (Mad Magazine did this, too.) Confounds the Science is closer to S & Y or* Mad* than Lehrer. In this style of parody, making the new lyrics sound similar to the old, but with a different meaning, is the goal. I’d say these dudes come pretty close.
Shrug–to each their own. I found the rhythm forced, the rhymes predictable, and the message scattered and unoriginal, none of which are trademarks for Yankovic. (I’m unfamiliar with Sherman).
The world is lousy with bad parodies, though, and this one isn’t worse than average. I just got my hopes up with the Yankovic/Lehrer mentions :).
I think it was a worthy effort. “Crowds of four” paired up with the original’s “10,000 people, maybe more” was particularly exquisite. Yes, I think these guys can be proud. Loved the Garfunkel wig.
Credit where credit is due - Yankovic also writes a lot of good original stuff; it’s just that the parodies get more attention. For example, my daughter of late has had the Captain Underpants movie theme playing on heavy rotation. It’s very good, but too much of a good thing, is still too much…
Lehrer would also adapt existing songs to his own satirical purpose. His Elements Song is just Gilbert and Sullivan’s I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General with new lyrics. Arguably his most blatant was his ripoff of Danny Kaye’s Stanislavsky to make Lobachevsky, the song about Russian mathematicians, right down to Kaye’s fake Russian accent.
He didn’t rip off Danny Kaye; he merely…conducted research. 
Arguably part of the joke, since it was a song about plagiarism. 
Is it valid to call it a “ripoff” when Lehrer calls attention to the Danny Kaye song in the intro?
Moved to Cafe Society
Don’t think of it as plagarism, think of it as recycling.
Seems like the genius of Weird Al is not being properly recognized here. He does not merely rewrite lyrics. Let’s say Al wanted to do a Bob Dylan parody. Ok, make the video look like Subteranean Homesick Blues- that’s easy. But what about the song? What to parody? Dylan gets some flack for his out there lyrics, so it should have wacky lyrics. But what’s the hook? “Bob” is a palindrome, those are wacky. So the song features lyrics where every line is a palindrome. Genius, I say. The song itself isn’t a direct parody, it sounds remeniscient of Tombstone Blues to me.
Substitute Mark Russell for Tom Lerher.