Summer Breeze, Redux

Hard to believe this song was last in my head in 2009 but, then, I haven't been attending to the blog very well. Hoping to remedy that.

Artist: Seals & Crofts
Year: 1972
Rating: Hot!
Last in my head: February 13, 2009.

Superball

(You'll have to play this video once to be amused by the hamster, and once to actually hear the song! "Nibbler" is quite distracting, but cute.)

This song has been in my head for weeks, but today was the first time I woke with it. Unbelievably, this is the first Aimee Mann song hitting the blog, despite the fact that she's one of my faves, and that I've seen her at least three times live. This morning, the song was ushered in by a dream: I was having a conversation with Aimee (clearly, we were on a first-name basis in my dream), and with some 20-somethings who had never heard her stuff. I was recommending albums they should listen to. The dream, in turn, I'm sure, had been prompted by a false sense of intimacy I'm feeling with her and with another indie rock hero of mine, Ted Leo, who have been touring together and being all lovey on the Twitter. Damn, wish I'd seen them on stage together.

Artist: Aimee Mann
Year: 1995
Rating: Luke Hot

Girl For All Seasons

Grease 2 now has its own tag. This is the fourth song from the movie that's been in my head since starting the blog in 2009. Shockingly, I still haven't woken up with a song from Grease, the original, in almost four years of blogging. I will say that Beauty School Dropout floats through my head with some regularity, but I haven't woken with it, and thus, it's been disqualified from the blog so far.

Artist: The Pink Ladies
Year: 1982
Rating: Luke Hot

Luke Hot!

I've always been lukewarm about the term I chose in my song ratings system for the degree between "Warm" and "Hot." "Warmish-hot" is so literal, not elegant at all. So I encouraged my readers to chime in and pick a new word or term I could use to designate songs I really really like, maybe even love, that intermediate step between genuinely liking a song (Warm) and thinking the song is The Absolute Shit (Hot!).

Luke Hot is the clear winner, among other ideas I was variously warm or just lukewarm to. Honorable mentions go to "Steamy," "Preter-boil," "Somewhat Sweltering," and "Fuzzy." Shouts out, mazels, congrat's, go to my pal Dave Grenetz, who suggested the winning rating. Here's a Hot Luke picture for you, Dave.

Stay tuned, gentle readers and fellow earworm aficionados. I will be changing all songs rated "Warmish-hot" to "Luke Hot" over the next few days. I'll also be interviewing Dave about the songs stuck in his head in a near-future entry. I think you'll find it Hot!

xo
Sooze

Black Water

Been remiss at updating lately. Life is just too dense with the obligatory right now, including my ever-elusive battle to get to work on time every day. The other thing is that most of the songs I've been waking up with lately have been strictly due to recent exposure (hearing it on a playlist or at the grocery store, etc.) and I've, by and large, refrained from blogging about those particular songs, because, while recent exposure is clearly my number one source for earworms, that phenomenon is just less interesting to me than when a song seems spontaneously to generate from some unconscious depth or memory trigger or other more poetic means. Anyhow, the Doobs entered the neural paths a couple days ago, and I have a moment to share 'em now. These guys just hold so much nostalgic warmth for me. I love 'em. And they happen to be from my home town.

And I ain't got no worries
'Cause I ain't in no hurry at all

I'll throw a question out to you, the reader: where do your earworms come from?

Artist: The Doobie Brothers
Year: 1974
Rating: Hot!

Never

Not my favorite Heart song, but we can't choose the earworms visited upon us. That is the essential beauty and randomness of the phenomenon. One might prefer Barracuda, but one does not get served up Barracuda. Nevertheless, these ladies certainly do rock.

Artist: Heart
Year: 1985
Rating: Warm

Do You Want Crying? or Two (or Three)-Hit Wonders

As I was waking up yesterday, I heard a baby crying somewhere outside my window. I opened the blinds, and saw a man walking with a toddler on the other side of the street, and the kid was sobbing all the way down the block. This relatively obscure secondary hit song by 80s popsters Katrina and the Waves then emerged in my head and stayed with me all day.

It's sort of timely, because Scott and I were recently talking about making a playlist of lesser hits by artists that only had two or three charting songs. You probably recall Katrina's bigger hit a lot better than this one, right?

Or you know how this song immediately springs to mind when you think of Crowded House? Well, instead, we'd put "Something So Strong" on the mix.



I've always preferred it, actually, even though (or maybe because) it's gotten way less air play over the years.

Or, take the band Thin Lizzy. You probably quickly conjure up this 1976 hit, but if you perk up your mind's ears a moment, you might remember this one:



So, readers, what are some other second-rate songs you love by Two (or Three)-Hit Wonders?

Artist: Katrina & the Waves
Year: 1985
Rating: Luke Hot

2011 Review, Part 2: Genres & Whatnot

Finally done tabulatin' the data for 2011. I present to you the genres of music most frequently appearing involuntarily in my head: (Click charts to embiggen!)

Classic rock took the biggest leap this year, looks like. And the pop category has a big jump only because I've been using it recently as more of a catch-all category. Likely the tags for commercial pop and contemporary pop will phase out over time.

The "Whatnot" tags are dear to my heart, those categories in the blog that aren't exactly genres but are groupings I wish to track.

Noteworthy this year: posts containing personal anecdotes and meta or self-referential info are gaining in popularity (due to my ever-increasing narcissism). It looks like songs from the U.S. Bicentennial year, songs by bands named after geographical locations, old camp songs, and songs best left to the sharks are all dying breeds in my head, at least in 2011.

New to the category, the Barry-Mix tag, songs that have featured in mixes my dear friend Barry has made me over the years. I have retroactively imposed this exciting (ahem, navelgazy) new category on previous years' entries, so now we have its complete bloggic history.

Excised from the Whatnot stats is data on the earworms tag: my new policy is to use that label on every entry in order to get the bots to recognize it as a keyword to improve hits to my blog. Ergo, the number of times I use that tag is pretty meaningless for personal interest, but might serve a more nifty marketing purpose.

Jump to 2011, Part 1: Artists, Eras, and Ratings

Okay, done. I humbly thank you, my loyal readers.

xo, Sooze

2011 Review, Part 1: Artists, Eras, and Ratings

I've been doing this blog for three years running now, and if you know me at all, you know I love excessive navel-gazing documentation! Having said that, I present to you the summary of Songs in My Head, 2011 Edition!

Part One: Summary, Artists, Eras, and Ratings

Number of entries: Exactly 100, down about 30% from 2010.
First song blogged in 2011: Yesterday Once More by the Carpenters.
Last song blogged: Fading into Obscurity by Sloan.
Oldest song: The Washington Post March by John Philip Sousa from 1889.
Newest song: Modern Man by Arcade Fire from 2010 (another song from the same album was the newest song I'd blogged in 2010, as well. I haven't been listening to much new music lately.)
Unsolved Mystery: No one as yet has been able to identify this persistent song in my head.

Onward to the Stats!

Artists:
(Click charts to embiggen!)

Now that I have three years' worth of data, pie charts are out and stacked bar graphs are in for this category. It continues to surprise me that Sloan is still the clear leader of the pack, but otherwise, I've got a pretty typical mental repertoire for a now urban, once suburban, middle class white chick born in San Jose in the early Seventies. Likewise for the now patented formula for the era of songs that pop into my head:


...virtually the same curve all three years of blogging, complete with the Gumby-shaped dual-peak of '70s and '80s songs dominating my internal landscape of tunes.



And again, the songs that pop into my head, by a vast majority, tend to be songs I actually like, which is kind of awesome. It's also apparently in line with research on earworms or involuntary musical imagery (INMI): most people who get songs stuck in their head do, in fact, like the songs, despite the occasional appearance of a nasty worm like Who Let the Dogs Out?

A'ight, that's all I've got for now. Stay tuned to this here blog for more about the Genres and Whatnot of 2011!

xo
Sooze

We Live For Love

I saw new wave band Missing Persons last month at the Red Devil Lounge. I think I woke recently with Ms. Benatar in my head in an associative groove of badass women of the '80s. I listened to this song over and over at one point in my younger years when my dear friend Barry put it on a mixed tape for me. You know, tapes.

Blogging about this song makes me reflect on the tremendous influence of Barry's mixed tapes in my mental musical repertoire. He's always had his finger on the pulse of pop music, often deeply appreciating the mainstream chart-toppers in genres I was too much of a hippy-throwback to enjoy. He was the first person I knew, for instance, to LOVE Kylie Minogue back in the '80s, while I was listening to the Beatles and Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young.

Barry's mixed tapes were carefully curated to blend the objectively good with the god-awfully cheesy in perfect measures. His tapes often introduced me to songs I'd never heard before, and just as often helped to reify the emotional importance of songs that I'd loved as a kid or in my teenage years. He was way ahead of the curve on '80s nostalgia, filling play lists with new wave and 80s dancey tunes before the decade was even over.

This flight of nostalgia propelled me to look back through the blog and discover how many entries I've written so far featuring songs that had appeared on Barry's mixes over the years. I even devised a new tag for these songs: the "Barry-Mix" tag, or simply Bmix. This post makes 19 entries, and counting!

By the way, today is Barry's birthday. Happiest, my love.

Artist: Pat Benatar
Year: 1979
Rating: Hot!

The Odd Couple, Redux

Last in my head on August 19, 2010.

This entry gives us a good excuse to rock out to one of my favorite categories of songs in my head: theme music!


Artist: Neal Hefti
Year: 1968
Rating: Warm

Still the Same

Officially the first tune in my head in 2012. I spontaneously started whistling it on Muni last night on the move between two New Year's destinations. I knew it was a Bob Seger song, but couldn't come up with any lyrics or the title. When I whistled the melody to my friend Ricky, he made a great guess: Best of My Love by the Eagles. The tunes are incredibly similar. The magical internets have helped me solve the problem, so I don't have to resort to posting a Mystery Song entry. :)

Happy New Year, all!

Artist: Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
Year: 1978
Rating: Warm

Golden Years

Two songs for the price of one today, lookathat! And, interestingly enough, both have a color and a measure of time in the title. The song I woke with yesterday, which I posted a few minutes ago was Blue Morning, Blue Day by Foreigner. Today's official tune is Bowie's Golden Years. I wonder if there's an internal juxtaposition here about my potential for healing over time, where once I was blue, now things are golden. Or somethin' like that.

Unfortunately, this amazing clip of Bowie performing the song on Soul Train was not embeddable, so you should view it at the YouTube.

Artist: David Bowie
Year: 1975
Rating: Luke Hot

Blue Morning, Blue Day

Unbelievable! This is the first Foreigner song to hit the blog. And it's way down the list of songs I'd think I'd think of.

Artist: Foreigner
Year: 1978
Rating: Lukewarm

Untouchable Face

I presume that Ms. DiFranco came to mind because I was discussing her music with Scott the other day. This particular song seems suited to some mental tangents of late as well. The song is not analogous to what has happened between me and my recent ex-girlfriend, but certainly I've had some of that "Fuck you, and your untouchable face" feeling lately.

Also, I was at a post-Thanksgiving feast with a bunch of poly friends last night, and finding the company worthy of stirring several mild but burgeoning crushes. This song exemplifies the conflict in monogamy, in which someone is "taken" and therefore, "untouchable." This is not the case in my scene of choice. However, the combined factors of 1. a close-knit circle of friends wanting to maintain good boundaries with each other and 2. most folks in the circle seeming to have fairly full dance cards right now, leads me to assume that any number of those faces may very well continue to be untouchable. For now.

Artist: Ani DiFranco
Year: 1996
Rating: Luke Hot

Note: The main guitar line leads me right into The Who's Baba O'Riley. Funnily enough this is the second entry in which a song has strongly mingled in my mind with Baba O. The last time this happened was with REM's Supernatural Superserious. I guess this happens when your band is palpably influential over the course of decades.

Sympathy for the Devil

What an eery, contageous, epic song, though I don't have a good reason for it to be in my head today. This being the eighth Stones song I've blogged about (in addition to mentions in other entries), they are a well-represented band in my head. It's probably the fact of their ubiquity alone that brought the song to mind. Or maybe it's all the political turmoil of late? (Just as every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints)...but that would probably be a touch of revisionist history.

Artist: The Rolling Stones
Year: 1968
Rating: Luke Hot

Note: Anytime this song is played, it should be announced by a proper Englishman wearing a tie.

Fly By Night

My ship isn't coming, and I just can't pretend.

Unlike my last entry about a Rush song, this one has emerged spontaneously from my unconscious. ("Limelight" back in 2010 was a carbon copy mental image generated from listening to classic rock radio.) So, there Rush is, a bona fide presence in my neural pathways, one might say "crackling with life" in the "invisible airways" of my brain. Ahh, sweet prog geekery.

Artist: Rush
Year: 1975
Rating: Warm

You're In My Heart (The Final Acclaim)

This is the most sappy, and, yet, the most appropriate song to pop into my head today. Amber and I have called it quits after more than six years together. She's been my lover and my best friend, and she's in my soul. Sigh.

Artist: Rod Stewart
Year: 1977
Rating: Warm

Post Script: As I've been attending more to the blog recently, I have to acknowledge the strange, stretchy soup that is Time. It's now–oh, wow–15 years, since Amber and I parted ways as partners. Grateful she's still in my life, though. This commentary also peels back the magical veil of the Modern Internets some, in that, I've hidden the dates on individual blog posts to make them seem more "evergreen." Music is timeless, you know. But autobiographical details do remain fixed, even as the memories waft around in the present moment. 

Post-Post Script: I had to laugh when I realized anew that one of my best friends in the world found out the news of this breakup all those years ago (see the comments thread) by reading about it in the blog! And on an entry about Rod Stewart, no less!  

Vogue

I had a dream that Madonna was my "lady-friend" and that I was buying her a pair of heels as a gift. It was all very butch-femme. Only, in the dream, I realized I couldn't possibly afford shoes that Madonna would actually deign to wear.

I woke up with "Vogue" in my head.

Artist: Madonna
Year: 1990
Rating: Warm

Note: Unbelievably, this is the first Madge song that's made it into the blog. I've had other songs of hers in my head over the span of the project, but none upon waking til now.

Do It for Our Country

Time to get down in a nuclear fallout shelter!

Artist: Peter Frechette as "Louis" and Maureen Teefy as "Sharon" from the Grease 2 soundtrack
Year: 1982
Rating: Hot, or not

Note: This is the third song I've blogged from Grease 2; curiously, no songs from the original have made it into my head yet.