Confessions... Thoughts Better Not Left Unsaid: Earworms I Have Known

Have you ever woke up with a song in your head that you just can't shake? I just realized that this happens to me nearly every morning—I wake up with a song in my head and that song runs in the background of my whole day, no matter what I am doing. They are never instrumentals, by the way. They always have lyrics, and it is the lyrics, usually one single stanza, like the bridge, that runs over and over and over in my head.

It sounds pleasant enough that anyone would ask, 'So—what's the problem with that?'

Well, it's peculiar. That's what.

First of all, I have asked many people if they dream with music, and outside of musicians, not a single person in my small polling have said, 'Oh, yeah, that happens to me too.' I'm not saying it isn't common—I just haven't found it to be.

The other mysterious thing about this phenomenon that happens to me is that not all of the songs are old favorites of mine. Take, for example, the one that I woke up with this morning, Counting Flowers on the Wall. That song is well known from Pulp Fiction, where it made a comeback, but the version I hear over and over all day long is the original one by the Statler Brothers, which was released in 1965… I always liked the lyrics—

Counting flowers on the wall
That don't bother me at all.
Playing solitaire 'til dawn
With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and
Watching Captain Kangaroo,
Now don't tell me—
I've nothin' to do…

I was never crazy about the tune itself. It's catchy enough, but the melody was too childish and sing-songy for me. Even so, it was a big hit on the country charts back in 1965, and went mainstream and stayed there through the end of the '60's, being picked up by everyone from Pat Boone to Chet Baker so it. Tarentino brought it back in Pulp Fiction in the '90's, and Kurt Vonnegut even used the lyrics in his novel, Palm Sunday.

One day, a few months ago when one of these songs was stuck in my head, I noticed, that the lyrics seemed to be pointing to some meaning in my current life. Almost a theme to the situation. But what was eerie, was that it seemed that the song was trying to tell me something that I wasn't realizing. The song by Jonny Lang, Lie to Me, was one of these examples.

At the time I was flirting with an old beau who'd really hurt me in the past. We hadn't spoken in a very long time, and our renewed contact was going through a sort of second honeymoon. All the things that made me fall for him were back—his humor, the fun we'd always had laughing together, in short, all the parts that had seduced me and none of the pain, the big pain that had devastated me. Yet, through all of this renewed intimacy, Lang's song kept repeating in the back of my head—

Lie to me and tell me everything is all right
Lie to me and tell me that you'll stay here tonight
Tell me that you'll never leave,
And I'll just try to make believe
That everything you're telling me is true
Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me

Lie to me, it doesn't matter anymore
It could never be what it was before
If I can't hold on to you
Leave me with somethin' I can hold onto,
For just a little while, won't you let me be

Anyone can see
That you love him more than me
But right now, baby, let me pretend
That our love will never end
Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me

It didn't take long to be reminded of the reason I broke up with this man and I cut it off again, but not before I felt like a fool all over again. I realized I had let myself be seduced. Still, it took me a while before I really heard the incessant message of Lang's song and connected the dots. It's so obvious on paper when I write it, but you must understand that these songs in my head are so ubiquitous that I don't realize they're there.

In retrospect, I know that I was deluding myself from the beginning, ignoring the past lessons I'd learned the hard way. But retrospect is a cheap shot, really, sort of like saying to someone after they've jumped off a bridge, 'Why didn't you go to a therapist?' Yet, here was a glimmer of awareness that's I had not recognized in myself. Had I listened to the incessant message of those lyrics, I could have seen what I was doing—that I was actively taking part in my own delusion…

Not all of the songs are necessarily some profound message from my sub-conscientious mind. Some of them are actually playful—My baby does the Hanky-Panky… Birds do it, bees do it, Even educated fleas do it…Will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four…or the latest one I mentioned in the at the start of this piece, Smokin' cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo…It's clear that my sub-conscience has a sense of humor…

Some of the songs are simply background for my mood like— I'm so pretty, Oh so pretty… or Hot town summer in the city, back of my neck getting dirt and gritty…

Some have may have significance or hidden meaning for me, but I haven't a clue what it is—like Dylan's—

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61"

Or Paul Simon's—

If you'll be my bodyguard,
I can be your long lost pal!
I can call you Betty,
And Betty, when you call me,
Call me Al!

I decided to look into this phenomenon that I have been experiencing most of my life and discovered that it is called earworms. Musical hallucinations is another term used. Some experts say it results from the loss of hearing, some that it is a form of schizophrenia, others say it is caused by a mini-stroke or some other neurological event happening in the brain. Hummmm. None of those explanations are good news…

Well, I have enough problems without looking for a new one, so I'll leave that research to another day... Afterall, I really don’t mind it much, unless the song that’s stuck is something like, “It’s a Small World”… That would drive me to go see a shrink...