Frankee - my brass coach LOVES Spike Jones! Do you know any sources for the albums? (He got me hooked on the stuff, and won't even let me borrow any of it!)

One other influence of mine is a book of poetry someone brought into my grade 12 english class. I had never read such powerful poetry before. It really opened up my poetry writing, and that led to writing lyrics. My lyrics aren't as hard-hitting as my poetry, but they are still much more powerful than they would have been without that book.
My stepdad has it right now.

My music was always pretty powerful, and I couldn't write lyrics at all until after I read that stuff.

More strange musical influences, please...