The Songs in My Head

Love Theme from Superman (Can You Read My Mind)

2012-01-31T09:06:00.000-08:00

Would've been excellent if I'd dreamt of flying.

Artist: John Williams
Year: 1978
Rating: Warm

Interplanet Janet, Redux

2012-01-26T18:28:00.000-08:00

Upbeat, silly, geeky. Perfect mood music to whistle to on my walk with Dorrie this morning.

Last in my head on April 10, 2009.

Music/Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens/School House Rock
Year: 1978
Rating: Hot!

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

2012-01-23T18:22:00.000-08:00

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. See the original entry for details.

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

2012-01-22T07:30:00.000-08:00

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!

I Get A Kick Out of You

2012-01-20T18:46:00.000-08:00

It's strange to wake up with a song about the zing! and thrill! of love, and have no particular person come to mind. It's a blank, neutral feeling. Which is oddly refreshing.

Artist: Frank Sinatra (written by Cole Porter).
Year: 1934 (original); first recorded by Sinatra in 1953.
Rating: Warm

She Believes in Me

2012-01-08T00:13:00.000-08:00

This clip is too good to pass up. Once Kenny and Lionel figure out who's doing which verse, I swear, their performance will bring tears to your eyes.

Artist: Kenny Rogers (and Lionel Richie)
Year: 1978
Rating: Warmish-hot

The Odd Couple, Redux

2012-01-07T16:26:00.000-08:00

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

Love the One You're With

2012-01-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

There's a girl right next to you
And she's just waiting for something to do...

Artist: Stephen Stills
Year: 1970
Rating: Warmish-hot

Still the Same

2012-01-01T09:54:00.000-08:00

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

Fading into Obscurity

2011-12-31T14:05:00.000-08:00

Probably the last post for 2011, making it an even 100 for the year. A self-aware song about a welter-weight pop star rapidly becoming a has-been. One of my all-time faves from Sloan, the boys still topping the charts in my head.

Artist: Sloan
Year: 2006
Rating: Hot!

I'm Into Something Good, Redux

2011-12-26T11:14:00.000-08:00

After a happy day of friends, food, and booze. Happy Xmas/Chanukah, all!

Last in my head on February 13, 2009.

Artist: Herman's Hermits
Year: 1964
Rating: Warm

Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

2011-12-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Fitting song on the morning Amber goes home for Xmas with her family, and I stay here. Goddamn, my unconscious mind is hokey.

Artist: Journey
Year: 1983
Rating: Warmish-hot

Note: Most unnecessary parenthetical in a song title ever.

Workin' in the Coalmine/We Work the Black Seam

2011-12-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

Straight-up random, as far as songs in my head go.

Artist: Devo
Year: 1981
Rating: Warmish-hot

But then this song from Sting's first solo record came to me a couple days later, which seemed very much linked to "Workin' in the Coalmine."

It's less random to appear in my head, both because of the association with the previous song, and also because Dream of the Blue Turtles was one of the first albums I owned and listened to over and over again when I was a wee teen. Both songs' themes are timely, given the economic disparities they address. Virtual anthems for the current Occupy movement.

Artist: Sting
Year: 1985
Rating: Warmish-hot

White Christmas

2011-12-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

The first holiday tune to enter my brain this season. Even being Jewish, I couldn't avoid Christmas music growing up, and I don't think anyone in the U.S. could avoid hearing this particular song, given it's the best selling single of all time. I don't much care for the usual onslaught of holiday music on the radio and piped into every last hardware store and corner market, but I will admit that I'm fond of this song. In particular, the rising notes in the line "May your days be merry and bright" and the complementary descent of notes in "And may all your Christ--mases be white" is one of the most sublime melodies in pop music, delivered perfectly in that Bing baritone.

Artist: Bing Crosby and Martha Mears, written by Irving Berlin
Year: 1942
Rating: Warm as hot cocoa sprinkled with nutmeg

Golden Years

2011-12-07T09:46:00.000-08:00

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: Warmish-hot

Blue Morning, Blue Day

2011-12-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

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

Movin' Right Along

2011-12-04T14:42:00.000-08:00

Saw the new Muppet flick (so fun, and moving! I actually teared up a couple times). Predictably, a song from the original 1979 movie popped into my head the next morning.

Artist: Kermit & Fozzie (performed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, music by Paul Williams)
Year: 1979
Rating: Warmish-hot

Within You Without You

2011-11-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

And to see you're really only very small and
Life flows on within you and without you.

Artist: The Beatles
Year: 1967
Rating: Warm

Untouchable Face

2011-11-27T10:14:00.000-08:00

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: Warmish-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.

Yesterday Once More (Once More)

2011-11-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

The third time I've woken with this song since starting the blog. Here's a better video for it this time. I think this was prompted because I was singing this tune with my family on Thanksgiving. It came up in the context of songs we remembered singing a lot as kids.

Last in my head on January 13, 2011.

Artist: The Carpenters
Year: 1973
Rating: Warmish-hot

Wild Sage

2011-11-23T10:14:00.000-08:00

And when somebody asks if I'm okay
I don't know what to say
And along the highway
From cast-off innumerable seeds
Wild sage growing in the weeds.

One of my very favorite songs. Makes me cry almost every time I hear it. It names a lifelong conundrum of mine: am I okay, or am I not okay? Usually, the answer is both, simultaneously, just like wild sage growing in the weeds. But how should I answer the question today?

Artist: The Mountain Goats
Year: 2006
Rating: Hot!

Sympathy for the Devil

2011-11-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

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: Warmish-hot

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

Give Me The Night

2011-11-19T18:29:00.000-08:00

This song must've been conjured by pure wish-fulfillment fantasy.

Cause there's music in the air
And lots of lovin' everywhere...

Artist: George Benson
Year: 1980
Rating: Warm

There Is A Mountain

2011-11-17T22:08:00.000-08:00

Fun performance, though he's having a tough time rallying the crowd on the chorus. I have no idea why I was triggered to remember this song this morning. I can appreciate the spiritual simplicity better now than when I first heard it as a wily teen and had to mock it. It was still amusing to wake to, though.

Artist: Donovan
Year: 1967
Rating: Warm

Three's Company Theme

2011-11-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

Three's Company
Get More: Free Full Episodes,Classic Video Clips,TV Land Schedule

I think this song is in my head due to my unconventional living arrangements of late. I live in a two bedroom apartment with my very recent ex-girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend. Hilarity ensues. And, y'know, awkwardness.

Artist: Joe Raposo (Composer), Ray Charles (not *that* Ray Charles) & Julia Rinker
Year: 1977
Rating: Warmish-hot