April 15, 2023 ~ Saturday (tax day in America … a sunny, cool, spring day – at least it’s not snowing!)
I need to do some things – like go to Home Depot and get more mulch and soil (I emptied 65 bags of such on my front yard two days ago – I am so sore, even my toes hurt!) … treat myself to a Starbucks cuz I’ve got a freebie coming my way … do some laundry.
You know – important stuff.
But, I can’t seem to get my motivation sparked in the slightest. One of those days. And if the lack of motivation, complete body soreness, and an out-of-nowhere sinus headache were not enough … I’ve had this damn song stuck in my head since … whenever. Long enough.
(And – WARNING – you might have these songs stuck in your head after reading this post!)
What is it with some songs? You hear them – and I’m talking about even some you first heard 50 some years ago – and there you are innocently brushing your teeth one morning or just about to doze off to dreamland one night and … BAM! … “Afternoon Delight” is playing (loudly) in your head! Where the hell did that come from?
I don’t consider myself a musical person. I don’t play anything other than the radio. I can’t hold a tune – not even in the car or shower. But, here I am – stuffed with thousands of songs that insidiously play over and over again on that endless reel in my brain and make me half crazy. Where are those things stored? Is there a special room in the brain for commercial jingles and bad song lyrics?
There is a radio station I listen to, only while driving, here in Denver – Legends 95.3 FM – that plays oldies. And, I’m talking oldies to ME, which are mostly songs from the ’60s and ’70s … but then a few other older oldies are thrown in from time to time. And there is even a show dedicated to “one-hit wonders”. I have a love-hate relationship with this station.
I love the songs they play – well, most of them. They fill me with nostalgia and great memories and I know almost all of the words to these songs. I find this last bit amazing because if I want to sing a song if I’m nervous or in the shower … I can’t think of ANY song to sing and if I do, it’s something that I don’t really know the lyrics to and then it is even more pitifully awful. Like Neil Diamond’s “Forever in Blue Jeans” – I thought it was about some hip pastor … a reverend in blue jeans! Duh! But – when the radio is on – I’m belting out the lyrics as if I wrote them all myself yesterday! Why is that?
Anyway – I’m sick of songs sticking in my head. I’d like a song in my heart – but not ones stuck in my head (endlessly)!
And this happening is actually very common. I thought it might be some sort of syndrome but such an occurrence is actually known as an “earworm” – which, in itself, sounds supremely nasty but it’s not an actual parasite but just a very common thing and happens mostly with popular songs or tunes. It’s also known as Involuntary Musical Imagery (which sounds much better than an earworm) and it’s said that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, who have high sensitivity or have just plain ol’ good memories are subject to this. Oh, lucky me – three for three!
This past week I did a lot of driving around. So – as a ride-along, I flip on my trusty companion radio and take a trip to Tune Town. The first day I got in the car and turned on the radio (set to Legends) and what assaulted my hearing organs? That utterly horrible song about some jerk who left the cake out in the rain! Seriously (and I’m sorry because now you’ll be singing that song for weeks) – it was an awful song. Was then – is even worse now! Jimmy Webb, the lyricist of that song should have been banned from writing anything else – ever. Why? Why write a stupid song like that? And, of course, it is one of those that haunt me and sticks in my brain for days and days and weeks on end.
The next day I got in the car, not thinking too much about “MacArthur Park” and that stupid cake in the rain anymore, and what came on first? “Gitarzan”! OMG – seriously? You know that one – it’s Gitarzan – he’s a guitar man – he hangs by his knees as he swings from the trees without a trapeze – in his bvd’s ... THANKS, Ray Stevens! Yeah, thanks for NOTHING except a pounding headache and these stupid lyrics that have been stuck in my brain since 1969. Seriously, 54 years of that. Horrors. And the worst of that is, I can sing all the parts and all of the voices, including the chimp’s, during that song – belting it out like I’m Whitney or Babs!
Later that day Marilyn McCoo was lamenting about Bill and her wedding bell blues – oh, she loved him so … and I was thinking I lucked out with that one but the very next song was “My Sharona”. WHY???? Was I being punished for something? Of course, then my brain linked that song to Weird Al’s rendition of it as “My Bologna” and … just OY!
Some days I really think I need to switch to talk radio!