The Persistence of Music

Bubonicon was fun, and I was fully engaged with panels, signing, reading, and hanging out with friends; but I came back with a bad cold, so the last couple days have been devoted to coughing, sneezing, gurgling, and swilling down cold meds.

Possibly because I’ve been taking it easy and staying away from distractions, I’ve been more than usually aware of the interior soundtrack that’s running through my head more or less all the time.

The other day I awoke with “The Chicken Dance” echoing in my brain, a tune that probably wins (out of a very large pool) the title of World’s Most Annoying Polka.  How this tune got in my head is a mystery.  I can only say by way of excuse that I didn’t put it there on purpose.

The only way exorcise this was to deliberately concentrate on a more pleasing but equally hypnotic song, which in my case was The Four Lads’ “Istanbul (Not Constantinople),” which through a mighty act of will I kept in my head until the horrific polka was gone.

This made me more conscious of other tunes playing to my inner ear, and I tried to make a note of them as they passed by.  These include.

• “Harlem Nocturne,” I think the Illinois Jacquet version, but maybe with a bit of King Curtis’ bite.

• “I Feel Fine” by the Beatles.  The attractor seems to be the instrumental hook at the beginning.

• “Mercy Mercy Mercy,” an instrumental version by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet.

• “G Minor Fleas,” the ukelele classic by Brian Tolentino and Herb Ohta, Jr.  Though the song is meant to be acoustic, the version I have in my head is very much a kind of rocked-up Latino version, with lots of brass, and I can’t find that version online, so the arrangement may exist only in my imagination.  According to a previous post, I’ve had this song in my head since at least September 2012.

• “Hocus Pocus,” originally a parody heavy-metal tune by Focus, though heavy-metal fans proved impervious to irony and made it a big hit anyway.  I’m sure it’s the only heavy-metal hit with yodeling.  At any rate, since I’ve had this one in my skull since November 2007, by now I have my own arrangement that bears only a tangential relationship to the original.

• “Down the Line” by the Stones.  Again there’s something about the instrumental bits that stick in my head.

• “Spann’s Stomp,” by Otis Spann.  Spann made his career playing behind other musicians, but on this one he steps to center stage.

• “Lok Baliyaan.”  This appears to be pretty popular on the Punjabi Top 40 and has been recorded by a lot of artists, but the version in my head is by Anakhi.  Just the thing to get me up in the morning, at least if I weren’t being dragged back to bed by a virus.

I conclude from this list that my subconscious is going through a retro phrase, and is including on its playlist tunes that were recorded before I was born.

What songs are in your head?  I’d like some suggestions to replace some of the moth-eaten oldies in my own brain.