Get It Out Of My HEAD!

Have you ever gotten a tune stuck in your head? Perhaps something totally inane like Hot Cross Buns? For some or another reason, this phenomenon occurs between my ears nearly constantly. My brain apparently has its favorites, like Take The A Train and the love theme from the 1972 movie, “Ben.” You know, with Micheal Jackson singing, “Ben, the two of us need look no more . . .” Yes, a love song for a rat, as sung by the world’s most popular pop star, before he was autopsied three times, that is, meaning MJJ, not the rat, though I assume the rat is also long gone, though a search for an obit on the creature turned up nothing since, it’s likely, this item would have been archived long before the advent of The Internet. But, I digress.

Once the cycle starts, it does not stop. The loop is unending, one stanza long, over and over and over and over and over. AND over. Again and again. It’s not pleasant. Lately, though, that sometimes empty space in my skull has been filled with a new tune – Bad Romance by none other than Lady Gaga. Only, not with the written lyrics. It seems my mind has seen fit to come up with variations like:

Ba ba bla-ack sheep, have you an-y wo-ol?
Ba ba bla-ack sheep, Yes sir, three bags full.

and:

Ba ba Barack Obama, you ain’t the Demo’s mama.
Barack, Barack Obama, ain’t got no health care karma . . .

Yeah. And:

Ga ga gaggin’ on your, on on on your d*ck,
gaggin’ so hard now, oh, sh*t, it makes me si-ick.

And it WON’T FREAKIN’ STOP.

Apparently, researchers at Dartmouth and at the University of Cincinatti’s School of Business (can you guess the application of the science?) have said that this is due to the excitation of the part of the brain called the auditory cortex and, once stimulated, tends to want to be stimulated again and again (I know a girl that’s like that and that’s no less annoying) like an itch that needs to be scratched. The “scratching” through repetition of the tune stimulates the “itch” again and the cycle repeats until some other change occurs to end the cycle. Although the ditties that Start It Up (a Stones fave that makes the rounds in my grey matter) are termed “earworms,” I’m guessing I must have earcrabs or something because, like, yeah.

Thanks, Lady G, I really don’t WANT TO  HEAR IT AGAIN MAKE IT STOP OH GOD NOOOOOOO . . .

Good thing I have an iPod Touch handy. Time for some showtunes, everybody! (Thanks, Roger!)