Everybody knows who weird al yankovic is. We have heard at least one of his songs or some may have even seen him on TV or in his movie. But what do we really know about this guy? When you get to listen to weird al songs, you can't help but wonder how this guy came up with these songs and also get to wonder how he got to be so popular now and get people to listen to weird al songs. Finding facts on weird al yankovic prove just as interesting as hearing one of his parodies.

Weird Al was born October 23rd into the family of Nick and Mary Elizabeth Yankovic, as Alfred Matthew Yankovic. Early on his life he was already taught by his father that the key to having a successful life was to do for a living whatever makes you happy.

On the day before his seventh birthday, weird al would come across his first step into what would become his musical career. It was to take accordion lessons at a local music school. This was presented by a door-to-door salesman and they were given a choice between guitar or accordion lessons. Playing the accordion was their way to go as his father asserted that the world could use another Yankovic accordion player. Here he was referring to famous player Frankie Yankovic, who has no relations with the family but would later become one of weird al's close friends and one of his musical influences.

It took three years for weird al to study the instrument until he continued to work on his own. Then in his senior year in high school, he submitted his first batch of parodies to a host of a comedy radio program. Dr. Demento then played one of his songs in his program, saying "might not have been the very best song I ever heard, but it had some clever lines."

This was the start of a musical friendship between the two as many years to follow, Dr. Demento's radio show would be haven to some of the Weird Al's parodies. The musician also had a taste of commanding his own radio show. Back in his 2nd year in college, he became a disc jockey at his university's radio station. His friends and classmates had been starting to nickname him weird al and he used this as his radio name and eventually stick to the alias.

The paodies My Bologna, from The Knack's My Sharona and Another One Rides the Bus, from Queen's Another Bites the Dust was to be the songs that reaped him of a following in Dr. Demento's radio show. Even The Knack's lead singer appreciated the song and was the one who suggested to Capitol Records to release it as a single. This was when he realized he could earn money from his flair of making parodies, and was when he kept to his father's philosophy.

Later on, weird al decided to form a band and go on tour. But unfortunately, the audience didn't quite take keen on his music back then and even threw stuffs at them and booed by the audience. Eventually though, many people got to appreciate his music and even the artists who songs he does parodies on, respects the guy's talent.

Now, popular parodies such as weird al eat it, from Michael Jackson's Beat It, weird al smells like nirvana, from Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and weird al canadian idiot from Greenday's American Idiot had been parading the airwaves and even appearing on videos. His most famous and also most controversial was "Amish Paradise," taken from Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise."

Various weird al songs to download can now be found everywhere on the Internet. Even free weird al mp3s and lyric to weird al yankovic songs. And every fan and even music artist is anticipating what next parody will come next.