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21 Oct 2003
p. I was extremely nervous about something I had to do at work today. I really don't want to go into details (apart from anything else, I don't want to re-live today), but I will say that it involved wearing smart clothes--highly unusual in my universe. This meant that I had to get the bus in to work, and was standing at the stop in the cold, nerves all a-jangle. It wasn't long before a song started going through my head (I hadn't put my iPod on yet). I listened with absolute horror, as "Don't stop me now" by Queen played on with dreadful clarity.
Me: Hey, Brain! "So don't stop me now don't stop me /'Cause I'm having a good time/having a good time"... Are you nuts? I am *really* not having a good time at the moment, and frankly, I think that your choice of music is rather insensitive. Brain: I was just trying to pep you up a bit--it's a cheery song! Me: Well, just stop it. Can't you play something else? Brain: OK, what about "The Bare Necessities"? Me: NO! No Jungle Book, no eighties rock, OK? Brain: Pfft. You're no fun.
p. Sometimes I think that the old idea of a "homunculus":http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/noelle212.html inside your head and making executive decisions for you, makes a lot of intuitive--but absolutely no scientific--sense. If I do have a homunculus, it has appalling taste in music.
2
Lyle: It just popped into my head (much like the homunculus itself!), but I hadn't heard it since Psychology lectures as an undergraduate.
pete: I think that I've probably just revealed far more than I intended about the rather bizarre state of my psyche at the moment 
I think I might have a little lie down the couch if it's OK with you...
3
The other word for songs that won't go away is apparently soundworms, and they happen to women more than men. You can do all sorts of things to try to get rid of them, but none of them work, so I prefer instead to loudly sing bad songs early in the morning to other people, thus infecting them also. It doesn't help my soundworms, but it makes me feel better that I'm not the only mug.
It's as easy as [hey, remember that Kylie song, can't get you out of my head? da-da-daaaa-da-da-da-daaaaaa, da-da-daa-da-da-daaaa-da-da-da]
by Vanessa, London, UK @ 26/10/2003 1:11 pm • Permalink •
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Vanessa: 'soundworm' is a great word, and much shorter than 'song which pops into your head and won't go away'. Yes, I do remember that song... AAARG! Now there's another one in there, and it's playing simultaneously with 'The Bear Necessities'! That strategy is pure evil, and I bet that it's possible to take over the world with it. Or did The Cheeky Girls already try that?
5
The trouble with soundworms is that they're like the old lady who swallowed a fly. The only way I know to flush one out is with a more powerful one. I've had many sleepless nights with the two-bar hook of some random pop song (and Britney et al obviously know how to do this sort of thing well). Trying not to think about it doesn't work at all, because it's running in some sub-concious nook...
1
Ah, but what a great - and woefully underused - word...
I need to remember it, and use it more myself.----- That dialogue in your head - it was one of the themes to those old books by Tim Gallwey (The Inner Game...). Self 1 talks to Self 2. Self 1 does the nagging. Self 2 doesn't get a word in. But you've got two Self 1s talking in your head. Hmmm. Lie down on this couch.
by pete @ 22/10/2003 10:11 am • Permalink •