Tag: Earworm

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Optimungry. Yes, that’s that unique set of feelings of being strongly hopeful but very hungry.

Hey, all you Solsters*. Another day worth of declaring winter is still here. Up to 37 F now, and rain continues putting its shine on everything as the sun toils behind a thick stack of clouds. 46 F is the purported high for our neck of the valley.

Wednesday, Feb 7, 2024, has descended on Ashlandia without pomp or ceremony. Nothing special to write about it here in Ashlandia, but sometimes, nothing special is good. Everyone is going about their business and nobody is veering into another’s path to make their life difficult. The furnace is heating our house’s air, the cats have staked out their nap sites, and the neighborhood is quiet, even still. No people, machinery, birds, or dogs are heard. Grant’s Tomb is noisier.

Heading off to get our latest COVID-19 vaccination shortly. Finishing my coffee first. My wife is hosting her book club tonight, and I’m attending a brewery with a of friends. Meeting with them satisfies my need to socialize, have a beer with friends, discuss news, politics, etc, and keep close to remaining sane. I’m looking forward to discussing the ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that Donald Trump isn’t above the law as a former POTUS, including actions he took while in office. The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel validated what I remembered learning about the Federal government and the checks and balance system while in school. Now we’ll see if the SCOTUS gets involved, and if so, how they rule. Interesting days still ahead.

Today’s song is “Foolin'” by Def Leppard from 1983. The Neurons planted the song in my morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks) when I rhetorically asked of someone else, “Who do they think they’re foolin’?” Presto chango the song launched. I complain about earworms or involuntary musical imagery (INMI), but it doesn’t bother me much. I consider them an amusing process within my mental faculties. I’ve learned through research that 1 in 5 people experience an earworm a day, but they don’t usually lost long, just a few minutes. I’ve always wonder if experiencing and remembering vivid dreams are related to experiencing earworms as I do, and if it’s something in my mental processes and neural paths. At the same time, while I’ve always had a natural tendency for dreams, I began working to remember them when I was in my early teens and started keeping dream journals. Likewise, when I experience an earworm, I don’t often try shutting them down, but instead strive to recall all the details about my experience with the song.

If you’re still reading, you’re probably muttering, “Enough about you.” I agree. Stay strong, be positive, lean forward, register and vote. I’m trying for the same. Here’s the music. Cheers

* Solster: person who lives on a world dependent on the star called Sol.

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Old Year’s Day Theme Music

Mood: chillaxing

This is it: Old Year’s Day 2023. 2024 begins tomorrow. Despite that big event, it’s chilly, wet, and foggy this morning in Ashlandia, where coffee feels like a medical necessity to get the day started. Maybe that’s just me. Don’t know. I’m in the house and not going out until I’ve have enough coffee to get un-naked. It’s a public kindness thing.

41 F now around my house while the weather masters say it’s 48 F elsewhere in town with a 53 degree high on the radar. This might have been a record warm winter month for us.

2023 was a solid year personally. I wrote a novel and revised it multiple times, and the process goes on. My family members have endured health issues, and it’s not pleasant to be a spectator to that, but they continue pulling through. My wife continues managing her health matters, and the cats are doing well.

I’m not happy with my country. While the economy is doing well, the political and cultural divide yawns wider. Social progress regarding equality and justice slid backward in many ways. Under the guise of ‘freedom’, our education system stays under attack by conservatives limiting what is taught and what can people can read, which is basically the opposite of freedom. I won’t go into the multilple failures I see in the GOP with their continuing support of Trump no matter what, except to say it’s disappointing and a challenge to all branches of government.

Gun violence remains prevalent and demoralizing in the US as the nation collectively refuses to do anything except T&P, which does nothing to reduce violence, curtail the killing, or help the victims. It’s a pathetic and inept response to hear of a these mass shootings and learn that ‘leaders’ offer their thoughts and prayers. How many years of thoughts and prayers has it been? How many more will come before anything beyond thoughts and prayers are offered? As my friend Jill would eloquently say, GRRRRRR.

As for the rest of the world, I’m disappointed that wars continue and threaten to expand to encompass more of the world, just as we were experiencing a century ago.

The Neurons fed “Time Has Come Today” by the Chamber Brothers out of 1968 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark delayed). Just thinking about time, for some reason (sure, that’s a smidget of snark, which is called smark). I posted it before, back in December, 2017, and that point was much the same: thinking about time (“Time!”) and there it is in my head.

Many people think of these song getting stuck in your head as an earworm. I’ve read that about 96% of people experience an earworm once a month or more. I seem to experience one everyday. Studies say that people who hold music as important to them experience earworms more frequently. I’ve never addressed how important music is to me, but Mom was always playing music, and it became a habit for me. They rarely bother me, these earworms, although every once in a while, a song burrows in and makes itself comfortable that does irritate me. “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy,” is one of those songs which comes to mind.

Stay pos, refresh yourself for the tilt against another year, be strong, and lean forward. Hey, ho, let’s go. Here’s the music. Happy Old Year’s Day. Cheers

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An Evil Plan

I asked my wife this morning, “Do you know the song, ‘Walk Right In’?”

Nodding, she sang the first verse and then asked, “Is it your ear worm today.”

“Yes. Do you remember any more lyrics?”

Mumbling through the melody, she laughed. “No.”

I sang her the song to remind her. She sort of shrugged me off.

Encountering her in the kitchen thirty minutes later as I was getting ready to leave the house, she said, “Well, your evil plan worked.”

Laughing, I sang, “Walk right in.”

She glumly nodded. “It’s stuck in my head.” Walking past me, she hit my arm.

I just laughed more.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Today is Thursday, February 25, 2021. Sunrise was at 6:53 AM and sunset comes at 5:56 PM. Sunset will soon be after 6 PM here in Ashland, 2021, which makes me happy. Of course, we’re barreling toward daylight savings time, that terrific day when we spring ahead one hour, losing one hour of sleep and one hour of late afternoon/evening sun. Yes, eventually, it catches up again, but I’d rather not endure it each year.

I was a child, emerging into my teenage years during the 1960s. That meant that the Beatles were the group I heard most. Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones…you know the list. The press was always atwitter over what any musical band was doing. That’s what pop culture is all about, innit? Movie stars had been dominating until then but the landscape was shifting.

Anyway, a song by the Beatles, “Hey Jude”, has captured the mental musical stream this morning, beginning to end. It’s one of those things — yeah, an earworm — where I believe that I must share it in order to save myself. Sorry.

This is a repeat. The song was selected as the day’s theme music back in 2016. At that time, I heard it on the store’s PA system. You know, stores like piping music in to create the right environment, set the shopping pace, distract shoppers, etc. On that day, “Hey Jude” was playing as I shopped. Most shoppers encountered were lipping the words or singing it to themselves. Imagination ran with it, creating a Broadway musical where we all come together in the aisles, singing and dancing. It would be an episode of “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist these days.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Also, listen to this 1968 song. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

I was riding a good cycle yesterday — write, read, exercise, check news, do other net things, play games, do chores, repeat. I’m reading Red Rising, an entertaining science fiction book while I navigate writing my own novel. With both hands functioning, I’ll write and edit six to seven pages a day, but the recovering left hand tires easily.

As always, reading — especially fiction — stimulates my writing. Also, my to-read list is piling up. After this is finished, I have Sansom’s Tombland awaiting on loan from the library, and Who Fears Death, and a stack of others.

Chores are always there, kitchen cleaning, vacuuming. We have three cats, males, who seem to be amazingly dirty, dragging bits of the outside in and gifting us a hairball.

Then news. Elections. Debates. COVID-19. Wildfires. Weather. Local issues. We’re mulling a move from the area, so we check places on line and think about the challenge of moving. A constant flow of information to absorb is flowing through the day.

In the middle of this, my brain decided to stream, “If You’re Gone” by Matchbox Twenty from 2000. Not unusual; my brain often likes to distract me with remembered news, music, or historic facts. Sometimes the roots to the why can be traced, or they’re readily apparent.

Not so, this time. Worse, it graduated from being a casual inner streaming distraction to a full-blown earworm. After burrowing in, it quieted for the night and then resumed this morning.

Urgent action required, I’m sharing “If You’re Gone” about Rob Thomas meeting his future wife with you to compel it to leave my head. It’s worked in the past.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

As I was in the bathroom cleaning up and doing things (I farted the opening chords to Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”, for which I’m pleased, proud, and embarrassed), another song kicked into my head. Don’t know why it started. As it won’t leave, I’m sharing it to drive it out of my mind before I go out of my mind.

Here is Dion with “Runaround Sue” from 1961.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Yes, today I do have an earworm.

Cutting the grass and trimming trees last night. As I started, “Your Mama Don’t Dance” (1972) by Loggins & Messina began playing in my head. It continued throughout the evening as I sipped a beer afterwards and coped with a Hulu outage.

The song was playing like a radio alarm clock this morning. Earworm, I sighed.

So, I’m sharing it to dislodge it. It’s a trick that works. Please bear with me. I thought about going with a live version but it lacked the piano playing. I like the piano playing. I considered a Poison version, too, but, sorry, the L&M studio version remains my preference.

That is all.

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Friday’s Theme Music

This song choice began from events that happened yesterday. A song came on the radio and got caught in a whirlpool in my stream. Hitting the coffee shop, I was singing it in my head. The young barista (eighteen-twenty?) (they all look so young) looked at me and asked (with a smile), “What song’s in your head?”

I sang back, “Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh, oh, oh.”

She laughed. “No way. “Dance Monkey”. Tones and I.”

Yes.

“Easy song to get stuck in your head,” she said.

I agreed. Hard to get it out, though, making it today’s theme music.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Walking yesterday afternoon and admiring the light on the hills (not much snow on Grizzly, bummer, we need more snow in the mountains, wonder how the snow pack is in the Sierra Nevadas) (I should check) (mental note, search for snow pack update) (it is February, and that’s when they usually come out) (and March), I thought one piece of sky and landscape looked like a silver bowl of light.

‘Silver bowl of light’ is a line used in “Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall (2005). “Suddenly I See” was suddenly in my stream, where it managed to survive a night of dreams (one about eating chocolate cake) (funny, another dream about eating cake) (what’s that all about?) and into the morning, officially earning the title, “This Morning’s Earworm”.

So, passing it on so that it may escape my mind. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

They – the omnipotent, omniscient, slightly mysterious and ill-defined ‘they’ – say that the best way to rid yourself of an earworm is to pass it on. That’s what I plan to do today.

On the other hand, I said to myself, perhaps I’m part of a chain. I’m streaming an old song – hell, I was six years old when it became a hit – but the fates put the song there knowing that I’d post about it to rid myself of it. There’s no earthly reason for streaming this song. It just popped into my head. It’s not my sort of music, and I don’t own, and never have, owned an album by these performers.

But maybe someone out there needs to hear this song. I don’t know. How this whole thing called life works is almost as complex as “A Game of Thrones”, or the definition of a catch in the N.F.L.

Here we go, with the Lettermen, from 1962, with “Turn Around, Look At Me.” Others have done it and had hits with it, but this version is the one looping in my stream.

 

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