Monday, March 02, 2009

You Would Cry, Too, If It Happened to You

No, no, don't worry. I'm not going to cry. Or make you cry. Or say anything sad.

I just so rarely get songs stuck in my head because of my disability with music that I was thinking recently about things that do get stuck in my head. Some of them are bits of "music"- although I hear them in my head the way that I would sing them, so they are unrecognizable to people who aren't me as music.

Strangely I don't ever get "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee," stuck in my head, even though it was the one song I have ever really, really tried to sing on key, because when I was a senior in high school I tried out for Grease, with disasterous results both in the singing and dancing segments of the audition. I think maybe Jimmy, if he read those words, just got the song stuck in his head. He's the one who sat with me patiently at the piano while I murdered the tune of that song 5000 times.

I do get that line from "It's My Party" stuck in my head: "You would cry, too, if it happened to you. Doo doo do do." In my head it comes complete with an uncertain trailing off of do's, because I'm not sure how many there are. I even had to think for a while to remember the name of the song, because that line is the entirety of what gets stuck in my head, not the chorus, not the title lyric, just that one line.

I know all of the words to "When I'm 64", but the only part that gets stuck in my head is "We shall scrimp and save." Now that I've written it down, well, of course that's what gets stuck in my head. Have you met me? I'm a miser. It's the miser lyric.

Sometimes I can't seem to shake sentences or bits of sentences. For a while, it was "Alex's head." Just the phrase, in the third person. When my mind was at rest or when I was walking the dog, I'd hear it. "Alex's head." And I'd wonder. Does it mean anything? Should I get a brain scan because maybe my brain is telling me that there is something wrong with my head? Is it a different Alex? Should I duck?

OK, carry on. I'll try to pay more attention to the voices in my head and report back tomorrow. Doo doo do do do.

3 comments:

OneN said...

Thanks Alex, for getting that song stuck in my head. Unlike you I have vivid recall of songs and even flowing pictures to go with them...so now I'm dancing to that tune as well as others that morph into the original. I start with "It's My Party" and und up at "Enter Sandman"...go figure.

Alex said...

Actually, I'm pretty good at getting songs stuck in other people's heads.

We all know about Davy, Davy Crockett. King of the wild frontier. He killed him a bar when he was only three.

Or do you prefer Frere Jacques?

born in carbondale said...

When I get older, losing my hair,
many years from now,
will you still be sending me a Valentine,
Birthday greeting, bottle of wine?
When I come home, at quarter to four,
will you shut the door?
Will you still need me, will you still squeeze me,
when I'm 64?

Ta Dum! (Just had to see if I could do it.)