Ah, take me back to where it all began...
Summer of 1974 for me was the summer between elementary school and junior high. At the time, all I had was an AM/FM clock radio, but it was my gateway to new worlds. Late at night, I could tune in AM broadcasts from hundreds of miles away, and often did, just to hopefully catch them saying where they broadcast from. Detroit, Toronto, Manitoba... and many places I'd never even heard of.
FM didn't have the range, but had better audio quality. I figured that out very quickly. The local FM station had "The Midnight Album Hour" when they'd play a new album at midnight, all the way through, without commercials. And the expansion of my adolescent mind continued.
One Size Fits All was the Midnight Album one night. Thanks to Deep Purple's song "Smoke on the Water", everyone had heard of Frank Zappa and the Mothers, but the number of people who had actually heard them was much smaller. That night, I became one of the privileged second group. I still remember hearing "Po-Jama People" and being blown away by it. To this day, I still use the expression "Hoy, hoy, hoy!" for nothing in particular. There are just certain situations which call for it; you just have to know. I also remember "Evelyn, A Modified Dog" and those glorious chords, and the sudden ending "Arf! she said". I finally tracked down the sheet music last year some time, and performed "Evelyn, A Modified Dog" for a friend of mine and his girlfriend at her house. There aren't that many people who could appreciate a live performance of that song. A few weeks later, I played the opening arpeggio (which is just a wacky E7) leading into a song in A in church. I know, it was only the opening arpeggio, but it has a very specific structure to it, and I nailed it. It doesn't matter that I was the only person in the room who knew it. I played Zappa in church.
The album itself. I love it, though that is largely because of sentimental value. I agree with Nihil-Morari's "Essential Tracks" but I'll play this one all the way through every time. Overall, I like this one better than Over-Nite Sensation, its sibling of sorts, though nothing will ever top Roxy & Elsewhere because I just love the energy of and craziness of live performance, and hearing Frank introduce the songs and talk about them a bit is awesome. But this one will always have a special place for me. You always remember your first time, and this one came at the perfect time, at the dawn of my musical, mental, and physical maturity, all rolled into one. It is literally true that part of who I am today is because of this album.