Muscial Influence

I was a weird kid.

Being the youngest of six kids, I think it was my destiny.

There is a well-known term, you may of heard of it before, called Survival of the Fittest. Well, being the youngest of a large, out-spoken family, sometimes the only way to be heard or noticed is to say or do something strange; Survival of the Weirdness.

Since I am the baby child of the clan, I found that my four older brothers and the oldest, my only sister, had a great influence on what I watched/listened to. I have a whole range of musical genres that I have great respect for because of this. Some are definitely more questionable than others.

My sister, the music major of the family loved Janet Jackson (a bit of Michael). She also had a thing for... wait for it... musicals. Go figure. I watched/listened to everything Andrew Lloyd and Singin' in the Rain to Oklahoma.




                                                    

The oldest brother had "cowboy" friends (like Southern Alberta not Brokeback, but ya never know with some of those strange fellas). I memorized most of Garth Brooks songs and cried when I first watched "Standing Outside the Fire" music video. Once, while attending some church function (I was probably 7 or 8 at best), I was belting out "I got friends in lonesome places" to which my mother quickly hushed me due to the mature subject of the song and my older brothers chuckled.

                                               

The second oldest brother was always switching things up. He loved to sing and appreciated many kinds of songs that you could dance and belt out. He got me into Pet Shop Boys, Sarah Mclachlan, Harry Connick Jr., Beastie Boys and yes, even Techno music. And let's not forget about The Mormon Rap. So cheesy, yet so good. I can't even find the original on youtube or I would share it with you, it has been redone sooo many times. Those dang Morms.

                                           

The third oldest brother (4th oldest in the fam jam) was a cool dude, sports guy. He liked the cool stuff like Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead. Whatever the cool guys in his group liked. He had a friend that was more of an old soul that would make him mixes that I liked to steal featuring more of Weezer, Steve Miller Band, Beatles and Queen.


 


 And then there was my brother closest in age to me. He was more a different kind of bird, let's just say he became an engineer as a profession. He LOVED the talented Weird Al Yankovic, right from the start. We would rent out UHF (watch it, it's crazy) from the library. And he would buy the soundtracks (cassettes at the time) of Animaniacs and actually corrected one of his Social Studies teachers who didn't know there were 50 states in the United States, as he could sing all of the states and their capitals.
                                  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSvJ9SN8THE

So there you have it. That is why I am the way I am. No excuses, but really, we all know it is my siblings fault.