Saturday, March 5, 2011

New Mystery Song!

Hello, readers!

Mystery songs are always fun entries, 'cause you get to play along at home! Here's a tune that has been in my head on a regular basis for years; I have no idea what it is. My best guess (though this could be way off!) is that it infiltrated my brain waves at some point when I was in college or just after, so perhaps between 14 and 18 years ago. Because of that timing, or perhaps due to some other idiosyncratic memory association with the tune, I've long thought it may be a traditional instrumental that was repurposed by either Camper Van Beethoven or They Might Be Giants. I happen to know a founding member of Camper Van,* and whistled it for him recently. He assured me it wasn't one of their tunes. (Please do check out Chris Molla's excellent blog, by the way! It's full of fascinating discussions of music, composition, performance art, and politics and culture.)


So, if any of you out there wanna wager a guess about the origin of this song, please do! I'm so curious about it, as it is an integral part of my mental soundscape, and I whistle it, unconsciously or quite consciously, multiple times a week.

*This statement reminds me of the scene I am very fond of in Annie Hall in which the guy behind Alvie (Woody Allen) in line at the movies name-drops Marshall McLuhan, and then Alvie pulls McLuhan out of the wings to support his assertion that the guy is a pretentious nitwit. Does name-dropping Chris Molla now make me a pretentious nitwit, I wonder?

**NEWSFLASH** The mystery has been solved! Four years after posting this entry, I finally figured out how this song came into my consciousness. Check out my update right here!

7 comments:

  1. 'Course it does : } btb, still tryin to get a fix on tune, so familiar. (love the recording!!!!)

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  2. @J - thanks much! Keep it rollin' around. Something might come up!
    @Hahna - thanks for tryin!

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  3. Only if you pull Chris Molla out of the wings and he supports your assertion. Otherwise, no :-)

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    1. I'm sorry I never responded to this comment, Jess. Hilarious.

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  4. Sorry, but my computer can't play it! Can you post it on youtube?

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  5. Hey, Boogaree! Sorry you can't access the file. It's hosted over at Podbean, and here is the URL for my soundfiles there:

    http://soozzip.podbean.com/

    I don't know if this'll help, but thanks for giving it a try!

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