While I’m sure it’s real important to figure out the origins of the universe, I’m sitting here wishing that Stephen Hawking and all those brilliant scientific researchers would focus on curing the more mundane and common ills if the human race. I’m talking here of ear Velcro – songs that get into your head and won’t come out. Through NO FAULT OF YOUR OWN. It’s not even that you LIKE the song. Hey, it’s not even like you really KNOW the song, but somehow the little rat-bastard tune snuck in one night – maybe there’s an evil song fairy who tags after her sister the tooth fairy and years later, goes “aha” and sneaks in after dark….no, that can’t be, right? There are no evil fairies. Right?

Then WHY pray tell do I have songs in my head – today, last week, a lot of the time – that I don’t know? And yet they’re there. I don’t listen to radio much. I don’t buy a lot of music – and when I did, trust me, I did not buy THOSE records/cds.

Today is relatively obvious – you know how some dreams are baffling and others are “oh, well,, it’s cuz I had that conversation about Mount Ararat with the person reading “Archeology magazine” so no wonder I dreamed about buzzards….”

So I’m reading a book called THE LAST OF HER KIND by the wonderfully named Sigrid Nunez and we’re at a point where Georgette, the protagonist is talking about her sister’s obsession with Mick Jagger. (yeurg) to the point of sending hundreds of letters, writing hundreds of song about him, (yeurg) and into my head pops…..no no no NOT a Rolling STONES song, that would be too obvious. No, what pops into my head is Gilda Radner doing punk musician “Candy Slice” doing her “Gimme Mick” (bulging eyes, lips so thick/are you woman, are you man/I’m you’re biggest funked-up fan”) (yes, “funked” up, it was live tv in 1979) .

So, 1979 And I STILL know the freakin words? Oh HELP!

Then out of freakin nowhere I start with a song I don’t know. I swear I don’t know it. I don’t know any – (she checks google) (yes, dear god it is) Lionel Richie. I don’t know any, don’t remember ever hearing any, listening to any music by Lionel Richie dammit and so someone HAS to explain why “Stuck on You” is in my head. (Guess I’m on my way….) Is it “stuck” that maybe the stuck in my head/stuck like glue/stuck on you segue happened.

So NOW WHAT? What do YOU do to get rid of ear Velcro? Sing a different kind of music? Play something really loud? Take drugs? If so, which kind and how much? And how quickly does it work?