Tunesday: I still don’t know what he’s saying

I’m diverging slightly from the normal Tunesday format tonight. You see, Husband watches football. A lot of football. And I’ve noticed that lately the NFL has not infrequently been playing Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow” during timeouts. I cannot hear that song without thinking of Opera Man.

You’re welcome.

I got your letter from the postman just the other day

. . . so I decided to write you this blog.

I am susceptible to earworms. Highly susceptible. I can hear one line of “Call Me Maybe” or the whistled part of “Moves Like Jagger” (darn you, Samsung) and it’s in my head for hours . . . or days.  If it’s catchy, I’m guaranteed to catch it.  (Don’t even get me started on “Mahna Mahna”.)  Today I found myself singing Genesis’s “Invisible Touch” while I heated up a bowl of chili for supper.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t actually heard that song in at least six months, and yet . . . now it’s stuck in my head.

I like music.  I’m a fan.  Here’s a random sample of what’s in my collection:

Leo Sayer “More Than I Can Say”
Paramore “For A Pessimist I’m Pretty Optimistic”
Terri Clark “No Fear”
Rhonda Vincent “Lonesome Wind Blues”
Bon Jovi “Wanted Dead or Alive”
Carrie Newcomer, “The Fisher King”
Crosby, Stills, and Nash “Delta”
Peter Gabriel “Red Rain”
Bob Dylan “Blowin’ In the Wind”
Cascada “Hold On”

Kind of eclectic, eh?  You should see all the stuff I didn’t list!  When one tends strongly toward earworms, one must build up a collection of potential antidotes.  (Although I have to confess that I actually do own a copy of “Call Me Maybe” because the first time it got stuck in my head for multiple days in a row, I tried listening to it on repeat to get rid of it.  Didn’t work.)

Music is an amazing thing.  It makes us laugh; it makes us cry.  We associate certain songs with times or places or events in our lives, and hearing a song can conjure up memories and feelings that take us right back to that place and time. For me, Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” is junior prom. Jeff Healy Band’s “Angel Eyes” is my eighth-grade crush. Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas” will forever be associated with playing with Barbies on my bedroom floor.  For that matter, so will Foreigner’s “Urgent” and Yes’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart”.  (I played a lot of Barbie as a kid.)  And above all,  Van Halen’s “Jump” was so overplayed when it was released in 1984 that I still can’t stand to listen to it.  (I figured since I’ve already dated myself by talking about Band Aid, I may as well go for the gusto.)

PS – you get bonus internet points if I earwormed you with the title and first line of this entry.