CAN’T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD
The ear worm turns. You can shake your head, but it’s not going anywhere fast. Ear worms like to linger. To insinuate, ingratiate, invade. All the ins and no outs. I love ear worms almost as much as one hit wonders. Even the title of this missive is an ear worm.
Back in the Seventies I was at a house party in a massive make out session. ELO was playing on the turntable. The tone arm was pushed to the far right, forcing a repeat of whatever was on, in this case, it was El Dorado side one from ELO. The cover with the shoes from Wizard of Oz. The Ruby slippers.
Side one
"Eldorado Overture" (instrumental) 2:12.
"Boy Blue" 5:18
"Laredo Tornado" 5:29
"Poor Boy (The Greenwood)" 2:57
We are all too consumed with passion to even get up and flip the record. Or stack more LPs on the turntable, which was the forerunner of the mixtape, a special burn, a curated playlist. Except with the stack of records, you got all the filler, the also-rans, the B-sides. Even on the A side of an LP, there were many B- sides.
The ear worm was Can’t Get It Out Of My Head.
Midnight on the water
I saw the ocean's daughter
Walking on a wave, she came
Staring as she called my name
And I can't get it out of my head
No, I can't get it out of my head
Now my old world is gone for dead
'Cause I can't get it out of my head
Breakdown on the shoreline
Can't move, it's an ebb tide
Morning don't get here tonight
Searching for her silver light
And I can't get it out of my head
No, I can't get it out of my head
Now my old world is gone for dead
'Cause I can't get it out of my head, no-no
Bank job in the city
Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot
They don't envy me, yeah
Sitting 'til the sun goes down
In dreams, the world keeps going 'round and 'round
And I can't get it out of my head
No, I can't get it out of my head
Now my old world is gone for dead
'Cause I can't get it out of my head, no, no
Oh, I can't get it out of my head
No, I can't get it out of my head
Now my old world is gone for dead
'Cause I can't get it out of my head, no, no, no, no
Lyrics: Jeff Lynne
“ In dreams, the world keeps goin’ round”, except it was the record that kept going round. A classic tale of enchantment, a bewitching siren’s song.
Which is another ear worm.
Song For A Siren by Tim Buckley. I was riding in a van across Canada with my band Rhythm Mission in the late Eighties. We had stayed up late in Calgary, then hit the road, driving through the browns of Alberta, into the yellow fields of canola in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan is flat. It is made for cruise control. The band even let me drive in Saskatchewan. One becomes hypnotized by the yellow of the fields and the blue of the sky. Then on through Manitoba, and the bright lights of Winnipeg, the Las Vegas of Canada, as I jokingly named it. I had not slept for about 48 hours. Exhausted. Too tired to sleep. I borrowed some Midol from our female Soundperson, Theresa, smoked some dope, and put her Headphones on and listened to This Mortal Coil’s version of Song For a Siren on repeat, until I finally fell asleep, waking up somewhere in the rough wilds of Western Ontario. The siren in this case was Cocteau Twins Elizabeth Fraser ‘s ethereal voice.
SONG FOR A SIREN
Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
'Til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang
Sail to me, sail to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am, here I am
Waiting to hold you
Did I dream, you dreamed about me?
Were you here when I was full sail?
Now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks
For you sing
Touch me not, touch me not
Come back tomorrow
Oh, my heart
Oh, my heart shies from the sorrow
Well I'm as puzzled as the newborn child
I'm as riddled as the tide
Should I stand amid the breakers?
Or should I lie with death my bride?
Hear me sing
Swim to me, swim to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am, here I am
Waiting to hold you
Lyrics: Tim Buckley
Another song about losing oneself to a blind passion. “Swim to me, swim to me
Let me enfold you”, giving yourself, mind,body and soul to another.
“You came on like a dream….”
Two nights ago, we were watching The Last of Us. When I say “we”, I always mean Michelle and I. In this third episode, Nick Offerman plays a survivalist in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The show is based on a video game. He is armed to the teeth, his pantry stocked with a seeming endless supply, a cellar of wine, guns, guns, guns, trip wires, traps to catch any intruders, invaders, random gangs of zombies.
One day, he sees on his surveillance screens that someone has been trapped in a hole he had dug up in a field. I guess I should say SPOILER ALERT before going any further. There are many holes in the logic of this show, besides the ones in the field. It is an escapist Armageddon. We are not in Kansas anymore. Or Saskatchewan. It is hard to say where we are, although the show was shot in Alberta.
Anyway, the Nick Offerman character, was he Joe? No, he was Bill. Bill meets Frank. Frank is the man trapped in the hole. Frank somehow charms his way into the survivalist’s heart and house, to take a shower. Oh, blessed foreshadowing. Frank is played by Murray Bartlett, the Australian actor who won our affections in the first season of The White Lotus, as Armand, the gay concierge.
Again, playing to type, Murray/ Frank insinuates himself into Bill’s Middle American armed fortress, and sees a piano, opens the piano bench and pulls out a book of music from, you guessed it, the Seventies. He starts playing Long Long Time sung most famously by crush worthy Linda Ronstadt. Do you remember that beauty? Both the song and Linda? Bill stops him, visibly upset, and says no, you are mangling it, let me try. Bill sits at the piano and in an emotionally choked moment, tries to sing the song himself. Frank says something about the girl who got away, while we hear Linda Ronstadt singing it in the background.
“Except it wasn’t a girl, was it?”
They had been foreshadowing this since Frank climbed out of the hole. Frank leans in. There is a passionate kiss, and before you can say Brokeback, Bill and Frank are in each other’s arms, Frank is talking about sprucing up the fortress, and inviting other survivors to their love filled villa in the middle of nowhere.
It was charming. Offerman and Bartlett will both win Emmys, and Linda Ronstadt will be running up the hill of Streams, rediscovered like Kate Bush was in Stranger Things. It’s no secret that I, like most male teenagers of my generation, had a major crush in Linda Ronstadt with her Mexican Velvet Painting big brown eyes, and that voice. What a voice. Listen to the many versions of Long Long Time. I did. She owns it. And now, I am obsessed. Again. And I can’t get it out of my head. The song. And Linda Ronstadt.
Long Long Time
Love will abide, take things in stride
Sounds like good advice but there's no one at my side
And time washes clean love's wounds unseen
That's what someone told me but I don't know what it means
'Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine
And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time
Caught in my fears
Blinking back the tears
I can't say you hurt me when you never let me near
And I never drew one response from you
All the while you fell all over girls you never knew
'Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine
And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long long time
Wait for the day
You'll go away
Knowing that you warned me of the price I'd have to pay
And life's full of flaws
Who knows the cause?
Living in the memory of a love that never was
'Cause I've done everything I know to try and change your mind
And I think I'm gonna miss you for a long long time
'Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine
And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time
Songwriter: Gary B. White