I don't think they can handle this.....

Earworms of the Week

“California Girls” / “Surfin’ USA” / “Barbara Ann” / “God Only Knows” – The Beach Boys

I’ve mostly been listening to the mp3 recordings of the bass part for the songs my choir are doing this season. The one that’s been most on my mind is the Beach Boys medley that we’re doing, that pulls all these songs together. The songs themselves are obviously classics, and as they’ve been written specifically for vocal harmony, they sound great sung with a choir. The problem, from my point of view, is that the bass entry for “God Only Knows” is extremely tricky to time, with my “dooty-do” coming at the end of a bar and with no really obvious cues. Well, that’s what the musical director is for, right? Learn the part and then watch for my cue…. Not a bad set of songs to have stuck in your head, incidentally. Perhaps let’s not mention that I’ve also had Gary Barlow’s “Let Me Go” stuck in there too, eh?

“I Believe I Can Fly” – R. Kelly
“No Diggity” – Blackstreet

I’m not generally a huge consumer of R&B, but sometimes you can’t argue with the sheer majestic brilliance of a song when it pops into your head for no reason at all. Oddly for me, I’m not talking about Mark Morrison here either. Of course, the real joy of having an R Kelly song in your head is that we’re only moments away from a mental segue into “My mind’s telling me no. But my body. MY BODDDAAAAY…..”. Sometimes I do that out loud. In the office. It’s all good.

“Overkill” – Motorhead

Yes. Emphatically yes.

“PDA” – Interpol

Wait, the guy who sings like an undertaker reading from a legal textbook is going out with Helena Christensen? Good for him. I love Interpol. There’s something endearingly awkward about them that really appeals to me. I’m not sure they’ve done anything better than their debut album, but they have been evolving as a band and their records are always an interesting listen, which is a lot more than you can say for lots of other bands.

“Creep” - Radiohead

Apparently it’s twenty years since the release of “The Bends”, which remains my favourite Radiohead album. I remember buying it from a record shop in Coventry when I was an undergraduate just starting to revise for my Finals. If memory serves me correctly, I bought it at the same time as I bought “I Should Coco” by Supergrass, and I can remember distinctly sitting at my desk in my room one night listening to them both as Belinda Carlisle played a gig at the student union. Ah, those were the days. It was a good gig, I’m told.  And yes, I know this song isn't on that album.  You just try telling my brain which Radiohead song to earworm.  Try it.

“Men in Black” – Will Smith

Difficult to hear this and not think of that scene in an Asda at the beginning of the second series of “Phoenix Nights”: come and get your black bin bags, on offer till December….”

“Jesus Hates Faggots” – John Grant

I knew that “Pale Green Ghosts” was a good album, but then you hear “Queen of Denmark” and my goodness me. I’ve introduced the graduate who sits next to me at work to two new artists this week. I think it’s fair to say that she was rather more taken with John Grant than she was when I played her Frank Zappa’s “Bobby Brown”…..

“Let It Grow” – Eric Clapton

I’m so old and out of touch that I haven’t seen “Frozen” and I basically don’t know any of the songs. You might say “Let It Go” to me, and rather than the song that everyone else seems to be singing, I tend to get either the Gary Barlow song “Let Me Go” that is part of the repertoire for choir this season or “Let It Grow” which is from the Eric Clapton classic “461 Ocean Boulevard”, which I loved when I was about 15 years old. The kids probably don’t know who Eric Clapton is, right? Hmm. Maybe that’s for the best, on balance. You’d lose “Sunshine of Your Love” and “White Room”, but on the other hand you would never have to hear atrocities like “Wonderful Tonight”.

“Bootylicious” – Destiny’s Child

What’s with all the R&B this week? I reckon I could do a mean karaoke to this, including sexy dance moves. Who wouldn’t want to see that, eh?

Eh?

Ah.

Have a good weekend, kids.