It's the SAME...OLD SONG...
...and it just keeps playing in your head, over and over again...

(See the blog title above? Well, that's a song title. So, who sang the song, and when was it recorded? Answer in the italicized portion of this post, at the very end. Now, please continue...)

Have you ever had a song that's stuck in your mind? For me, the best way for me to flush my memory of whatever maddening tune I'm thinking of is to actually HEAR it somewhere. For example, I had an instance where I was mercilessly afflicted with "song burn" (my term for a tune that, for some reason, gets ingrained into your head) and I couldn't do anything about it Back in ye old high school daze, I was on vacation with my family, and we went to the Washington State coastline, up on the Olympic Peninsula. I had never seen the ocean before, and I was quite impressed by it. Still am. Anyway, all of a sudden, an old album track by the Moody Blues invaded my mind..."and the tide rushes in...and washes my castles away"...and I had to wait two weeks before we went home before getting the record out and playing it!

Sometimes, though, that "spontaneous song invasion syndrome" (a name the Federal Government would probably give it) can actually come in handy. It happened back in the mid-70's when I worked for the Forest Service during the summer, so I could pay for (most of) my college expenses. I was a member of the District Fire Crew, and in-between fires, we would carve out trails in the wilderness, or thin trees, or dig holes and then fill them back up, whatever. One day, the boss took us junior fire-kids deep into the national forest; we all got out of the van and began a two-mile hike thru heavy brush to get to the place where we were supposed to begin carving a hiking trail.

We were all carrying tools, 5-gallon water bags (which weigh 8 pounds apiece), rations and other equipment, and of course it was a 90-degree day and we were all wearing steel-toed boots, long-sleeved chambray shirts and jeans. In short, it was just plain old MISERABLE. After spending most of the day carving out the trail, we then had to hike BACK to the van...ugh...I was at the point of sheer exhaustion when all of a sudden, a 1972 Wayne Newton song popped into my head: "Daddy, don't you walk so fast!!!"; I sang out the title and we all had a good laugh over it. Except for the boss, that is.

More often than not, however, something even crazier happens to me. It seems that whenever I'm talking about music with someone, and I mention a particular artist, I end up hearing that artist on the radio or over a loudspeaker later that day. That just blows me away. The same spontaneous process seems to happen with people I'm thinking of. If a thought of someone pops into my mind all of a sudden, I usually end up seeing that person later on in the day. So I suppose even a doe-head like me has some sort of psychic powers; now if I could just put them to use. Maybe think of a person I wanna stay away from and I'll never see them again, perhaps.

And lately, just lately, that's been happening with catch-phrases that I've read or heard, and it's a pretty vivid expression...and I just can't bump it outta my consciousness (or lack thereof)...



It kinda looks like, here, that this guy didn't quite succeed at "JUMPING THE SHARK". I've seen that phrase used in blogs; evidently some TV series on its last legs used a plot of someone "jumping a shark" to increase ratings. And that phrase is now a part of my deflated brain, for better or worse. I think the show was "Happy Days"? Hah! Your day will be anything BUT, if that ol' fish gets ahold of you!
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Another totally useless posting, but hey, I had to write something, right? Well, maybe I'm growing weary of being 'topical' alla the time. Or maybe I'm just tired of bad news. That must be it! Oh yeah, the song was the 2nd big hit by the Four Tops, one of the big Motown groups, and it came out in 1965. Damn! Now I gotta go play that song and get it outta my head!