I’m Jake Hounds, and this is One Thousand Words or Less
EPISODE 9- That Song In Your Head
One Saturday every April is Record Store Day where people visit indie record stores, to celebrate their love of the record album. I grew up in that romantic time and the record was my sweetheart. But like a bad breakup that sours love forever, I’m done with records. I hate them!
Hate is such a strong word, but it’s the counterpoint to the love I once felt for them, when they contained all the secrets of the universe, from favorite songs, to the ones not on the radio, to the lyrics, to the photos of the artist. I would pan over album covers endlessly trying to decipher meanings and crack the code of the story the band was telling.
My first record player was a device called a “close and play,” for kids to play 45 singles with ease. But closing a record player over a record only wrecks it, and that is where my love-hate relationship began.
There’s more: My parents’ concerns did not extend to high fidelity, and our home stereo set was always woefully…crap. I wanted to be a DJ which led me to place the needle by hand, creating scratches, ironically on the songs I loved the most. I didn’t have a record brush, or that mysterious liquid that went into the brush, and I was lazy about returning my LPs to the sleeves. I was a poor caretaker of my records, and like neglecting a pet, my behavior created a pack of feral animals.
The worst part of my former vinyl relationship was visiting the record store. Albums lined up in tempting rows, calling out to me. “Pick me.” But I was never able to buy more than one or two records at a time, paper route and part-time job combined. So while I left the record store happier, I never left satisfied. There was always a feeling of lack. Shopping for records just made me feel poor.
I popped into a record store a few weeks ago, helping my son explore his curiosity about vinyl. We have a turntable, but it’s in the garage with my much too powerful for any sane household stereo and speakers, plus crates of albums. He wanted to check out records from his favorite band, Gorillaz, and they had two: One was priced around fifty bucks and the other, was over a hundred! Talk about reviving old wounds, but decades later there I was in a record store feeling poor again!
While every audiophile will warn you of the downside of streaming music, it’s the perfect fit for me. It’s a dream come true. I have unlimited access to over 100 million songs! With music streaming, I am in music heaven, and I relish being able to pull up a deep track anytime I want.
My unpopular opinion is that the home audio experience is better without the objects. Records, tapes, cds, just get in the way of experiencing music. To me, record store day should be called “obsolete technology day.”
Streaming aside, what about the other extreme from buying expensive records or cds? No, not the radio. I’m talking about those songs that you can access royalty free, in your mind. The ones that never leave you, the ones you can’t shake, the ones you wake up singing?
I’m talking about the notorious earworm. People hate having a song stuck in their head and there are clinical interpretations for this phenomenon, where songs are labeled unwelcome intrusions. More than 100 years ago, Germans coined the term öhrwurm- to describe this experience. Scientists call it by other names too, like “stuck tune syndrome” or“musical imagery repetition.”
But what if, what if those songs are the ones your heart desires most, the ones that your soul is singing? Ask yourself, what is the song that I keep singing, and why? In many cases, the source is clear: I heard a song yesterday, I hummed it to myself, and now it’s there forever. Or I went shopping at Menards!
As I thought about earworms, I started to track mine. Please pardon the random and uncool nature of this list, it’s for science, after all.
This morning I woke up singing “Lovely Hula Hands.” We listen to Polynesian music in the background around the house, and so that’s not really a reach for me, although I wouldn’t call it a favorite in any way.
After the Eclipse this week, someone on social media said, “great, now I’ll be singing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,” for months! I raise my hand to that, having already caught myself singing it.
There are lots of Disney Earworms, like “It’s A Small World,” or the EPCOT song written by the same evil twins, “Imagination.” I’ve woken up singing “Let it Go,” from Frozen, as well as “Bibbity Bobity Boo” and “You’re Weclome” from Moana. With so many successful musicals it makes sense that they have so many earworms!
Recently, my wife and I shared a morning earworm, the catchy theme song from the Netflix show we watch, “Somebody feed Phil.” I suppose liking a show, or a song, helps it stick a bit better.
A great song I found myself singing over and over is Never Forget You, by the Noisettes, and, thanks to my daughter, I think I sing “Betty” by Taylor Swift more than I’ve ever sang any other song. Like all her musical achievements, now the Swifties have taken over my mind!
Recently I heard that one way to calm yourself or soothe anxiety is to sing. So what about singing the song that is already in your head. Tell it’s story, maybe it is stuck there for a reason? Earworms might be etched into your mind, but they never skip!
If from listening to this episode you find yourself uncontrollably singing one of the songs mentioned, I do apologize. Maybe I could help. Do you remember the song Popcorn? Do do do do do do do. You’re Welcome!
This has been 1000 words or less, I’m Jake Hounds.
Thanks for listening.
One Thousand Words or Less is one hundred percent created by flawed natural human intelligence.
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