Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Can't get that song out of my head!

How does this happen? You’re exhausted, ready to fall into a deep, relaxing sleep and some song creeps into your brain and won’t go away. It just plays over and over again like the shuffle on your MP3 player is stuck. Right now, for me, that song is Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People. This is actually a terrible song about a kid with a gun and lyrics that say “All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you’d better run, better run, outrun my gun.” What the heck are pumped up kicks and why does this kid want to shoot kids with them? I don’t want to like this song but I have to admit it’s a catchy tune.

Here's the link to share the love...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ

Yesterday I was driving home with the radio on singing along to Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville thinking you probably couldn’t find many people who didn’t know the lyrics to this song. Yes, I know the lyrics to hundreds of songs but I can’t tell you the names of all the Presidents of the United States. But, of course, if someone put all their names to a really catchy tune, say Pumped Up Kicks, I might know them all. Let’s see, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, uh Madison and um, I know Lincoln was pretty early on and there were two Roosevelts in there (Teddy and Franklin). How many have there been? Forty-three or forty-four? Wait, there was also Hoover, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower, and of course Kennedy. I can name all the ones since I was born: Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the First, Clinton, Bush the Second, and Obama. How did I end up on this topic?

Anyway, for the longest time I had P!nk’s Raise Your Glass (which I love) rolling around in my head. I heard it when I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, when I was in the shower, during a conference call that I wasn’t really paying attention to. And then I’d hear it on the radio, sometimes even twice a day for a while. Another recent one was Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons. They sound Irish but are really English. Good tune.

And it doesn’t ever seem to stop. The only thing that changes is the song. Sometimes it’s a good one and sometimes it’s ones that you really hate. And those are the worse.

"All the other kids with the pumped up kicks better run, better run, outrun my gun…"

1 comment:

  1. Funny you mentioned Pumped up....I've heard it only a few times and liked the music of it immensely...also note that I have the ability to listen to a song and NOT hear the words but I can get every note of the music. And that's how I've heard Pumped up...it's got a little 80s thing to it and something nouveau. But I am disappointed to hear what the words really are...

    as for Mumford, i LOVE that group. Just saw them do a concert on TV! would not have minded being there. Intense energy. Grand use of instruments and yeah, i have a weak spot for anything even slightly celtic.

    Now I gotta go find a good song to play all day...

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