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Somebody Kick My Jukebox, Please

At any given time, there is music playing in my head.

It’s not always loud enough for me to hear it, but it’s always there.  It’s usually something that I’ve heard recently, though sometimes songs from long ago (Monster in the Mirror, anyone?) will insert themselves into the play-list.  And once in a while, my conscious will use it as a way to get my attention and give me a mental talking-to.  (Like the time I was walking to class after a little fight with Kyle early on in our relationship and suddenly Meet in the Middle got stuck in my head despite the fact that I hadn’t heard that song in something like 10 years.  Creepy, no?)

Of course, having my own personal soundtrack isn’t always as fabulous as it sounds.  Sometimes, it will play on without me realizing it, until someone asks me testily to stop humming because apparently I’ve been humming My Heart Will Go On for the last 20 minutes.  And on the one night a year that I can’t sleep, it will never fail to pick the most inappropriate song I can think of.  (The night before our move to Wichita I had Lady Gaga’s Just Dance playing in a loop.)

But my little mental jukebox becomes a true curse when a show I’m working on starts running.  Because for the next 3 weeks, the soundtrack for said show will be the only thing that plays in my head.  Without fail.  If it’s a show that I enjoy, such as when I programmed for HMS Pinafore, it is at worst a minor annoyance.  But for a show that I don’t like to begin with, like Joseph or my current show, Camelot, I enter my own personal, mental hell.

Since I first heard the music on Monday, I have been forced to make a concious effort to get anything not about knights or Camelot stuck in my head to drown out this godaweful show.  And frankly, the mental effort can be exhausting, especially since Camelot doesn’t want to leave without a fight.  A stage manager in college once told me that the best song to get another out of your head is Journey’s Don’t Stop Beleiving, and I’ve found it to be quite effective in the past.  Something about that incredibly singable chorus just sticks in my head so effortlessly.  But lately even the impressive vocals of Steve Perry are no match for the repetition of The Simple Joys of Maidenhood played in an endless loop.  I’m giving Sara Bareilles’ Fairytale a try, but I think it might be too mellow for the pure evil that is Take Me to the Fair at 7am.

And so I beeseach you, brilliant people living in my laptop, what do you do when you’ve got a terrible song stuck in your head?  How do your scour your brain of that rot and get the annoying to stop haunting you?

Because right now I’m thinking carnivorous earwig.

{ 2 comments… add one }
  • megan June 27, 2009, 8:49 pm

    i always listen to say any thing’s WOW i can get sexual too it’s catchy and it tends to stick in my head over anything else

  • CharmCityKim June 29, 2009, 1:05 pm

    I usually try to focus on another catchy song (one that I like) – that usually works but not always. Maybe if the song is bad enough – I’ll go start a conversation with a person that makes my ears bleed. That usually works – but that’s trading one bad thing for another. I’m not sure if that’s better.

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