After watching the YouTube “John McCain called his wife…” clip, the snippet from the musical was stuck in my head for two days. It just could not be dislodged. I knew it would just be a matter of substituting another catchy tune, but this does not happen on demand. I was so desperate to rid myself of the niggling number that I brought out the heavy artillary. Yes, I deliberately attempted a Girl from Ipanema substitution. Desperate? Yes. Foolhardy? Most probably. Successful? Surprisingly not. After all, this is the song that came with me for over two years while I was drudging through mindless temp jobs. On one occasion, I was placed back at an office I’d been at 18 months previously. One of the guys I’d worked with on the first assignment greeted me with “Oh, great, I’d only just got that annoying song out of my mind”.
On Friday night I watched This is Spinal Tap for the first time in ages. (OK, for the first time in months.) The good news was that I no longer had the McCain song in my head. The bad news – I was stuck with Sex Farm. Thanks, Tap.
Am I still at risk of blurting out “Getting out my pitch fork/Poking your hay” whilst in the queue at IGA? No, thanks to the electronics department at Myer and a shopper wanting the iPod speakers demonstrated. At first, I was thrilled to hear The Stranglers’ song Golden Brown in such an unlikely setting. As I walked away, I found myself humming it. On the tram, I was tapping out the strange rhythm. It stuck in my head and just won’t be shifted. Am I happy? Sort of. Unfortunately, I can’t help mis-hearing the lyrics in my head. My internal soundtrack is, disconcertingly, “Gordon Brown texture like sun…”. Creepy.
I can sort of relate to the problem of certain songs being inescapable. Yesterday my sister decided that she’d heard of the song “99 Red Balloons”. And that she’d better listen to it. On repeat. For six hours.
Eventually I got so exasperated that I marched up to her speakers and turned them off. “Oh noooo! What did you do? They’re not working!” Satisfied with a job well done, I walked away. Ten minutes later, “99 Red Balloons” came back on. It turns out my sister actually does know what the “POWER” button on her speaker does and was only tricking me so I’d go away and she could listen to her new favourite song in peace.
Several more hours later (in fact, at 1am), I decided I’d had enough of this song filling my head and turned on the CD player right next to my sister’s computer speakers. Since my sister is a big fan of Life on Mars, I grabbed David Bowie, and amazingly, she turned off “99 Red Balloons”! And then I was free of this annoying song until I saw this entry. The memories all came flooding back, and now it’s stuck in my head again. Thanks for that.
Best solution I have found to songs being stuck in my head: going to http://www.skreemr.com, typing in any song/band/word I think of, and playing whatever comes up. It works. Mostly. Er, usually. Sometimes. It depends how stubborn the song is…
Oops, sorry for that… But you have helped, in a way. I’m no longer hearing “Gordon Brown”. Now I have “99 Red Balloons”. Although this is possibly a new definition of “helped”.
Oh, and I’m very impressed by your new look – although I will post that on your blog.