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Saturday, June 09, 2007

 

Da Doo Doo Doo

I really hate my mind. I mean, sure, I get some enjoyment out of it from time to time when it, say, shows me a picture of Dick Cheney in assless chaps. But it more often just annoys me.

One key way my mind pisses me off is when it insists on fixating on a piece of music. This happens to a lot of people, I know, and I don't know how many of them blame the music itself. Kind of stupid, if you ask me. The music can't help being catchy, can it?

Now, I don't know if it works the same for everybody, but there are two ways that I get a song stuck in my head. There's the organic way, in which I hear a song somewhere (on the radio, from a passing car window, in a porn flick) and then it just lingers with me long after it's over.

The other way, which is more frustrating and the reason that I so deeply hate my brain, is when a song just pops in there out of nowhere. I may not have heard the song for fifteen years, but a random synapse fires somewhere beneath my scalp and suddenly I'm humming "Hello Dolly."

Actually, "Hello Dolly" rarely finds its way into my head, because even the tiniest association with Carol Channing is automatically rerouted to the joke section of my brain so I can get a chuckle from the "I don't remember having corn" story.

Anyway, I got a song stuck in there yesterday and it got me thinking about the music that tends to pop into my cerebrum most often. This is, again, the completely unbidden, have-not-just-heard-it music, the sudden appearance of which seems to have no rhyme or reason. There are about five of them.
  • Alouette--This is the one that I got stuck on yesterday. My elementary school music teacher, Mrs. Gorby taught this to us when I was in second grade and it's given me cause to hate her ever since. It's just such a happy little tune that lingers in the mind like herpes. And the kicker here is that it's a song about ripping a bird's head off. Who the fuck wants that floating through their thoughts ad nauseum?
  • London--This is a song from They Might Be Giants' Venue Songs. Another bouncy little slice of happiness. And it's so goddamn annoying, because my friend Beigey taught me a trick a long time ago to rid myself of earworms; he said any song can dislodged in your head by thinking of a They Might Be Giants song. And this usually does the trick. I'll hum a few bars of "Purple Toupee" and it acts as a palette cleanser. But it doesn't work so well when the song you're trying to get rid of is by TMBG.
  • The Theme from The Godfather--Oh, this one haunts me. The worst thing about it is that you can perform it in so many ways. You can whistle it. You can hum it. You can do a full-on vocalized "Da da dee da da da dee da da da da dum." And it's just such a cool fucking song that part of me doesn't want to get it out of my head.
  • Let It Snow--This holiday classic doesn't generally piss me off that badly. It's a very pleasant song. What I hate about this one is that I often find myself singing it in, say, May. And I have to stop myself and say, "No, goddammit! The weather outside is not frightful. It's seventy-five with scattered showers!"
  • Mona Lisa--This one's my dog's fault. In a way. I started singing it to him shortly after we got him a few years ago, changing it to "Momo-cito" and ad libbing lyrics. So now I sing it to him periodically and then spend half an hour trying to stop thinking about it.
I wonder if other people hate their brains as much as I hate mine.
posted by Joe  # 8:13 AM

Comments:
I hate that my brain keeps playing the theme from "I Dream of Jeannie" over and over again...
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 4:24 PM
 
Science may never find the anti-TMBG-earworm. Maybe it's Ween. Maybe it's 80s-era Heart.

There are some things man isn't meant to know.
# posted by Blogger the beige one : 7:53 PM
 
The Circus Song...it pops into my mind unbidden and at the weirdest times, like during sex. Then it stays, sometimes for days. I hate that.
# posted by Blogger Serena Woodward : 9:00 PM
 
The anti-TMBG-eraworm is...

Mr. Sandman.
# posted by Blogger JJisafool : 2:33 PM
 
Oddly enough, Mr. Sandman is a song that plagues (or pleasantly haunts) my wife all the time.

Hey, maybe her earworms are my cures and my earworms are her cures. How symbiotic!

By the way, I actually hate the term "earworm" because it just reminds me too much of Wrath of Khan. *shiver*
# posted by Blogger Joe : 2:42 PM
 
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