(via mental floss)
by Roger Cormier
Starting with his first professional recordings and appearances on the Dr. Demento radio show almost 35 years ago, “Weird Al” Yankovic has managed to stay on the pop culture map and change with the times, even while so many of the bands and artists he has parodied lost the spotlight. Here are some facts about “Weird Al” Yankovic and his songs.
1. WEIRD AL’S PARENTS CHOSE THE ACCORDION FOR HIM
The legend—verified by Al Yankovic in the liner notes of his 1994 box set Permanent Record: Al in the Box—reads that on the day before Al turned 7, a door-to-door salesman came through Lynwood, California, to solicit business for a local music school, which offered its pupils a choice between guitar or accordion lessons. Because Frankie Yankovic shared the family’s surname and was known as “America’s Polka King,” Al’s parents chose the squeezebox for their son. Al would gradually learn how to play rock n’ roll on the instrument, mostly from Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, playing it “over and over” and trying to play along with it. Frankie and Al weren’t actually related, but the two would eventually collaborate, with Al playing on “Who Stole the Kishka?” on Frankie’s Songs of the Polka King, Vol. 1, and Frankie’s “The Tick Tock Polka” played by Al as a lead-in to Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” on the Alpocalypse track “Polka Face.”
