It’s not secret that I love music. I listen to it a lot. I use it as a buffer between me and the outside world, usually when I’m writing. I listen to it when I make dinner and when I go out with my cats, showing no shame as I sing (and sometimes dance) along with my iPod. I’ve gotten into the habit of watching music videos on YouTube before I go to sleep at night.
So it should be no surprise that I get songs stuck in my head on a regular basis.
Most of the time it makes perfect sense. For example, I’ve been on an Ok Go kick lately, so it’s no surprise that their songs are playing on a kind of loop in my head, though it’s fun to go to sleep with “End Love” playing in my brain and wake up with “A Million Ways” there instead.
Even though I love their music (obviously, or I wouldn’t be listening to so much of it), sometimes having one song stuck in my brain gets tedious. I love “Needing/Getting”, but it turns into an itch that can’t be satisfied when it’s playing on loop in my brain for six days.
That’s the thing with my brain. It’s got a mean streak.
I find most of Lady Gaga’s music, particularly from her first album, to be pretty good. However, I don’t like to listen to most of her songs because they’re earworms. They get into my brain and proceed to melt important neurons and synapses. Now, if my brain can take a song that I like and wash, rinse, repeat it for six days, imagine how tiring it is to have every song I listen to clashing against “Bad Romance” for a week and a half. Yeah, that really happened.
And do you think my brain spares me from songs I don’t like? No, don’t be silly. It’s unfortunate, but not unheard of for “We Found Love” by Rhianna or “Moves Like Jagger” to randomly pop in my head off and on for two weeks like some kind of cruel torture technique (for the record, I don’t think these songs are bad as I’m not qualified to make such judgments; I just don’t care for them).
I try to influence the songs that get stuck in the crevices of my mind, but sometimes they come to me randomly. I’ve had songs that I haven’t heard in literally years just appear in my mind. Of course, when that happens, I’m compelled to seek them out to listen to them in their entirety. “Weapon of Choice”, which I posted last Friday, is a good example of that. That just happened. I was having a bad day and suddenly, Fatboy Slim was there. Who knew?
My brain did, that’s who. Sometimes, it comes through with an appropriate musical reaction.
But usually I’m singing snippets of songs for days on end.
And that’s okay, too.
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