The Bee Gees earworm

A story about songs that get stuck in your head...

If you’re anything like me (insert obligatory mental health joke here) some part of your brain that clearly ought to be concerned with more important matters will fire off a synapse or send a Morse Code message or set loose a carrier pigeon with a message strapped to its leg (by now it should be dawning on you I have a less than perfect understanding of how our brains work) and suddenly some song from four decades ago will pop into your head for no apparent reason and you can’t get it out.

In the pre-internet days that might drive you crazy because you could only remember parts of the song and kept wondering what John Fogarty sang after he started Green River with:

“Waalll, take me back down where cool water flows, y’all.”

True confession:

I was in a band in high school and we played a lot of Creedence Clearwater Revival because the songs were simple and much easier to play than something like All You Need is Love by the Beatles, a song we never attempted mainly because we couldn’t afford the orchestra and being snobs, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithful, Keith Richards, Graham Nash, Keith Moon and Jane Asher refused to travel to Shingle Springs, California and sit at our feet on the Ponderosa High School (Home of the Squabblin’ Bruins) gymnasium floor while we performed.

Otherwise, we would have nailed that sucker.

Also, I just noticed that I failed to confess what I was on the verge of revealing: I got to sing the Creedence Clearwater songs because apparently my singing voice sounded like it originated from somewhere inside a humongous Campbell’s soup can anyway, but – along with the rest of America – I never really knew what John Fogarty was saying.

So when performing a Creedence Clearwater song, every once in a while a recognizable word would surface, but in-between those islands of clarity I sang gibberish like:

“Yor gubba fig me the worlis mold ring, ifa gob loosea comma hong…Green River!”

Never had a complaint because apparently nobody else knew what John Fogarty was saying either and I just now looked up the Green River lyrics and find myself somewhat stunned to learn somebody named Old Cody Junior had a camp and he believed the world was smoldering. 

Who knew?

These days if a song starts running through your head you can go to the internet and find the lyrics and a performance of the song and scratch that mental itch. In my case, the song recently stuck in my head was Words by the Bee Gees and the only part of the lyrics I could remember was:

“All I have are words, to steal your heart away.”

Which was close, but no metaphorical cigar, or as John Fogarty would undoubtedly say: “Cluba nomarfor seecar.”

Words came out in 1977 and it seems I was a bit thick at the age of 24; a condition that continues to flare up like malaria or lumbago and I say that without a clear understanding of what “lumbago” actually is, although it sounds like a fun dance to do after four Singapore Slings and might require you to wear a basket of fruit on your head.

If some band leader wearing a white tuxedo jacket yelled: “Hey, everybody! Time to do the lumbago!!!” and started playing one of those rumba-type tunes with a guy shaking his maracas, I’m guessing we’d all grab a partner and start dancing.

Or maybe that’s just me and you’d rather sit there like you’re the current President of the No Fun Club who would rather mope and watch me dance with your girlfriend. Your call, but I think you’re making a big mistake.

Back to our story, although I’m still kind of thinking about that dance scene.

(Also: I typed in ‘rumba’ and Google is convinced I’m actually curious about “Roomba” – the robot that started as a vacuum cleaner and eventually evolved into the Terminator and tried to kill Sarah Connor. Word of advice: you need to destroy your “Roomba” right now, but don’t talk about it out loud because Alexa is listening and will warn Roomba it’s time to evolve and attack the humans.) 

Some words on Words

Because I was a bit thick at 24 it didn’t make much of an impression at the time, but now that I’ve had a few more decades of life experience, the Words lyrics come off as more than a bit weird and let’s start with the opening verses:

“Smile an everlasting smile
A smile can bring you near to me
Don't ever let me find you down
'Cause that would bring a tear to me”

OK…so the singer is demanding “an everlasting smile” which seems like a bit much unless he was dating the Joker and then issues a vague threat about what will happen if he ever finds the person “down” which might be a natural state for someone who has just been informed they’re required to smile for the Rest of Eternity and failure to do so will have a negative impact on someone else’s mental health and who knows how he’ll react to being so blatantly disobeyed. “Hey! I told you to never let me find you down!”

Next verse:

“This world has lost its glory
Let's start a brand new story now, my love
Right now, there'll be no other time
And I can show you how, my love”

This has a David Koresh/Branch Davidian vibe in which the singer has informed his bewildered significant other that he can somehow control Time…and it gets worse from there:

“Talk in everlasting words
And dedicate them all to me
And I will give you all my life
I'm here if you should call to me”

And now the singer is requiring “everlasting words” which will all be dedicated to Him and no other subject which reminds me of my mother’s description of Heaven in which we’ll all be “smooth down there” like Ken and Barbie dolls and sit at God’s feet while singing his praises for All Eternity which sounds like it might get just a tad boring after a century or two and also calls into question God’s constant need for praise, which comes across as pretty insecure for an All-Powerful Deity.

(If you find that last sentence blasphemous and you’re right about the Afterlife, I imagine I’ll be punished for it by burning in a Lake of Fire Until the End of Time because as anyone who has actually read the Bible knows, God can be a bit of a dick, which assumes he’s male and I’ll apologize for that because apparently I’m more afraid of pissed-off females in this Life than a pissed-off God in the next one. On the other hand: God’s revenge is only theoretical, but I’ve actually seen what women can do when properly motivated.)

“You think that I don't even mean
A single word I say
It's only words and words are all I have
To take your heart away”

And just in case the song’s intended target does not get the message, that last part is repeated three times in a row. Gotta say it’s hard to blame a person who doesn’t take bizarre requests for “everlasting smiles” and “everlasting words” seriously.

Also, there’s a whiff of a megalomaniac and/or suicide pact feel to the references about “no other time” and if some dude said this to a woman on a first date, she’d probably be wise to leap out of a moving car and take her chances rolling down I-70 at high speed and then crawling to the nearest farm house, dragging her compound-fractured leg behind her and hope when she knocks on the nearest farmhouse door, the farmer who answers isn’t John Fogarty because he’d probably say:

“Errjew hurb? Jwan meter calb 911?...Green River!”

Now good luck with all the earworms I just set loose in your brain and watch out for the killer robots vacuuming your rugs.