"What Was That Song I Had Stuck In My Head The Other Day That Was Driving Me Crazy?"

Okay, as I’m wont to do, I’m throwing out a theory that I have done absolutely no research towards proving. That it hasn’t been proven may make it a corollary, I don’t remember… Mr. Vakili, my high school Trig teacher would be disappointed. But I will not let the fact that it hasn’t been proven stop me from proclaiming it out to the world, as I do become nearly sexually aroused by my own thought processes.

When a song gets stuck in your head, there may be a geographic connection to it. That is to say, when I get a song stuck in my head at work, quite often something at work has triggered it. And as it happens to me, well then it holds true for everybody.

For instance, I used to constantly get the song “Cut Your Hair” by Pavement stuck in my head. Not bad as far as lodged songs go, but when I began to realize that the song had been there for about twenty minutes and that it happened nearly everyday, I started wondering why that song. As it turns out, there was somebody working there with the last name Correia, which sounded remarkably like the way Stephen Malkmus sang the word “career”. This solved the riddle, but did not stop the song.

At my current job, I found that the song “London” by The Smiths was falling in and not leaving. Why? Because there was somebody nearby with a computer that made that squealing modem sound which sounds exactly the feedback burst at the beginning of “London”. The same feedback burst that a bunch of us in high school used as an alarm to wake us up early for a ski trip. Again mystery solved, but frankly the song didn’t stick around that much. The Smiths just don’t have the kind of brain glue it takes to absolutely drive you crazy.

What does, you ask?

The "Sanford and Son Theme" seems to be a curse to nearly everybody. It constantly gets stuck in my head, but I dig it, so it doesn’t bother me. The other day at work, Pimpin’ Joe here couldn’t let it go. Just as he was forgetting it, the girl behind him launched it again. In retaliation he planted the "Spiderman Theme".

Other songs that can be used against your friends and neighbors are:

1) "I Dream of Jeannie Theme"
2) "The Girl From Ipanema"
3) "Shiny Happy People" by REM
4) The "CHiP’s Theme"

You do get extra points (to be redeemed at some later Asshole-off, complete with a C-list celebrity raffle and booth floozies) for planting a song with different lyrics, such as using the following lyrics as sung to the "CHiP’s Theme":

“I love presents!
Presents are all that I do love!”

Okay, well I think I just proved my geographic/stuck head music theory is just a fluke in the lodged song mystery. But I think I have managed to show how you can torture others by planting insidious songs. When someone complains about having a song stuck in their head I often inform/threaten them that I can remove it for them (I generally go with the "Sanford and Son" at this point, but sometimes I throw in a "Flipper Theme"). Mercedes says that humming "The Girl From Ipanema" will eradicate songs from your head.

No wait, that’s her cure for hiccups…

Oh and one more song that is a good head sticker… Black Sabbath’s "Iron Man". I constantly have it my head, but it’s more of a smooth jazz, loungy version. So not right.