Oh Boy, Jimmy Fallon Sang “Angela Bassett Did The Thing” As Neil Young
Here’s some real Tuesday-morning shit for you. Neil Young just returned to playing live after a four-year absence from the stage. If there was ever any societal need for Jimmy Fallon’s Neil Young impression, that need has been met. Last night, though, Fallon brought back his Neil Young — which to Fallon’s credit, is eerily accurate — for the most Jimmy Fallon purpose imaginable.
At last week’s BAFTA Awards, Ariana DeBose, an Oscar winner for West Side Story, did a Broadway-kid try-hard rap that saluted all of this year’s nominees for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. The rap went viral in the way that annoying things go viral, and DeBose deactivated her Twitter account in response. Lizzo recently quoted from the rap while onstage in Amsterdam. We should’ve all known that Jimmy Fallon would come cannonballing into this thing.
On last night’s Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon put on the wig and the hat and the harmonica, and he brought back his quavering high-pitched Neil Young voice. This was all so that he could sing the Ariana DeBose rap as Neil Young. He ran through the whole thing twice, just so that it could eat up enough screen time and the world could marvel at his cleverness. Please enjoy this spectacle below.
Neil Young is one of our most publicly grumpy celebrities. How has Jimmy Fallon escaped his wrath all these years?