In high school I played guitar and "sang" in a band, and, as we all liked Blondie, we attempted to play one of their songs.  While hammering away at the D and G chords (and fumbling to that tricky B-minor), I had nary a qualm warbling:

 "When I met you in the restaurant, you could tell I was no debutante..."

I write this to say that even back then I was comfortable enough in my masculinity to croon before God and the girls in my high school about my status as a debutante; so I equally have no worries with this morning's earworm.  On the beat, scooping coffee into the filter, I proudly (and loudly) bellowed:

"When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera, Sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que Sera, Sera,
What will be, will be."

Why Doris Day?  I haven't a clue.  When it comes to the whys an earworm pays a visit, all I can (continue to) croon is:

"Que sera, Sera…. "

Once upon a time there were only a limited number of channels on the television.  This is way, way back, when TVs didn't have remotes. (I hate the term "clicker."  It's a remote.)  In order to change a channel, one had to suffer the hardship of actually getting up and physically turning the dial.  The benefit of having to get up, however, was that you were already at the TV; so when the channel one selected was inevitably filled with static, the rabbit ears antenna adjustment wasn't quite as onerous.  (Some channels did require actually holding the antenna for the picture to stay clear, which is what brothers are for.)

As unpleasant as old time TV viewing sounds (small screens, few channels, having to watch a program when it actually airs [and how scary is that?], etc.) it did have its benefits.  Well…at least one that I can think of.  Because there were only three commercial networks (ABC, NBS, CBS), the chances were pretty darn good that you watched the same programs that your friends did; the importance of which, cannot be overstated.  Heaven forbid that you not be up on the antics of Danny Partridge, or a bit later in Junior High, the Fonz.  Woe be unto you if you didn't know that Sabrina Duncan used to be a nurse on The Rookies.  

And you had better know that Mrs. Beasley was from Family Affair and not Family (But never, ever disclose that you have a mild crush on "Buddy").     

(Okay, I'll admit it now.  I even bought the single Kristy recorded with her brother.  Still have it, too.)

Reliving and discussing the TV shows on the previous night was what one did in the hallways before homeroom, in homeroom (usually after the pledge of allegiance),  as well as when passing friends in the hallways between classes.  (If time was limited, yelling out the catchphrase from a particular show, a "Dy-no-mite" for instance, would suffice.)  So, if you missed the programs up for discussion, you were essentially persona no grata for the day, reduced to the ol' smile-and-nod, without having a clue as to what was being talked about. 

However, in spite of missing the night of TV shows, if one were savvy enough, during a break in the conversation, one could slip in a line that everybody would know, and instantly the tide would turn and all would be well again.  A simple "Monsters are such IN-teresting people" or "Wile E. Coyote, 'Super Genius.'  I like the way that sounds" would change the entire conversational dynamic and swing it to the universally known, loved, and utterly repeatable Warner Brothers cartoons.

Let's be clear, the Warner Brothers cartoons in question are those that were made to be shown theatrically, sometime between the early 30s and early 60s or so; you know, the good ones.  Each toon was around seven or eight minutes, which meant that three cartoons fit perfectly in a half hour spot, complete and uncut (another perk of watching TV in the dinosaur age).  After school, all through Elementary and Junior High, these classic cartoons were there for the viewing in either half hour or sometimes even an hour blocks.  And we watched them all; over and over and over again.

As would later happen after seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the repeating of certain lines and phrases would be scattered through our normal conversations.

"That's a joke.  I say, that's a joke, son."

"I wish my brother George were here."

"Ever get the feeling you was being…watched?"

And a personal favorite and oft repeated: "Shut up, shutting' up."

I'm unsure if the Warner Brothers cartoons have the same impact on later generations, but I suspect not.  Yes, you can get them in pristine condition and in HD on blu-ray (and I have), but the communal experience is likely lost.  One hopes that if someone says, "It's curtains for you.  Curtains."  the reply would be obvious.  But who knows?  All I can say is that for my friends and me, even now, the automatic response would be, "Oh, they're adorable."

So, what does all this have to do with earworms?  Glad you asked.  This morning I woke up to the strains of one of those great jingles that occasionally appear in the cartoons of the Brothers Warner.  In this case, it's from a terrific Bugs Bunny. (Redundant, I know). 

Sing along with me:

"What's the score, boys? What did Bugs Bunny do? What's with the Carrot League baseball today?"

The earworm genie gave me a bit of a break this morning.  Of course an earworm was front and center in my head as I opened my eyes, but, unlike most mornings, where I get the merest snippets of songs, this morning I was privileged with a full blown verse.

"Some folks love to see red, some folks never talk about it.

Some folks crave a blue lady, some folks know and still they doubt it.

I'm just no good without it, I'm not a man at all, it makes my skin crawl…"

I even get the orchestral bit that leads up to, but, of course doesn't include, the chorus.

Alice Cooper's "Some Folks" is from his Welcome to My Nightmare LP.  I believe I can says "his," as this is the first Alice Cooper album where he essentially went solo.  As I understand it, for the previous albums Alice Cooper referred to both the band as well as the lead singer, who took the name Alice Cooper.  It's kind of confusing, I guess, but think "Hootie and the Blowfish," if the lead singer was actually named "Hootie."  (D'ya think Darious Rucker ever gets called "Hootie"?  Guess not.)

I quite like Alice Cooper, particularly Cooper the band, and various phrases and riffs from their first several albums often make my earworm playlists.  (Indeed, before I started this blog, the opening guitar riff from Big Apple Dreamin' (Hippo) from the band's underrated Muscle of Love album haunted me for several days.)  I'm sure they, the band Alice Cooper, as well as Alice solo will appear again soon.  Until then, welcome to my earworm nightmare...

This one has been pretty insidious.  My tinnitus woke me up about three o'clock this morning (it gets that loud sometimes), and before I knew it, I was humming three notes.  Actually it's only two notes; the first and the third are the same.  And it's killing me.

Think the notes the Wicked Witch's marching guards chant in The Wizard of Oz; you know, the "O-E-O" bit (Itself a delightful earworm seen here:

Well, in this case the chant belongs to a terrific song by one of my favorite bands, Blondie.  Featuring some of the greatest vocal-chord ripping screams by Deborah Harry, alas, Victor, the second to last song on Blondie's Eat To the Beat album also features the guys in the band offering a deep, sinister, ominous "ah ah ah" that works perfectly within the song, but is deadly when looped as an earworm.  I know the song well, and yet, all I can hear is the "ah ah ahs" that should be followed by one of Harry's gut wrenching howls, but, for me, is simply followed with more "ah ah ahs."

There are a lot of things I could say about Blondie and what they mean to me, including the fact that they were the first band I ever saw in concert.  (And, as I write this, the last one, too.  And Ms. Harry sounds great and is still smoking!).  As I'm not exactly sure what shape this blog will take I'll leave my thoughts about Blondie for later.  (Just quickly, while all of their albums are essential, don't dismiss The Hunter, a highly underrated collection that gets better with each spin.)

"Ah ah ah…"

A good example of what the Earworm Fairy often brings, this morning I woke up with a single phrase from the Cat Stevens song Wild World:  

"….There's a lot of bad and be-ware…" 

It is on a continuous loop, and is driving me bonkers.  (Particularly the word beware, the two syllables of which are both being hit with the same intensity.)

I have no feelings one way or another for Cat Stevens.  In my vast collection of music, I have but a scant five or six Stevens' songs, all of which appear on either Soundtrack albums or Seventies collections.  While I'd never turn the dial if one of his songs came on the radio, I just never caught Stevens' fever and climbed aboard his Peace Train.  (The pun is the highest form of humor.  Look it up.)

Why, oh why is "…there's a lot of bad and be-ware…" playing in my head?  And why won't it at least get to the chorus?  At least with the hook it would not be quite as annoying as I sing it over-and-over while washing the coffee pot and mugs.  

But alas, the hook never comes, and when I try and force it, the best I get is: "Oh baby baby it's a… Lot of bad and be-ware." 

Be-ware indeed...

It wasn't bad enough that I suffered severe hearing loss, particularly in my right ear (although my left is catching up) due to either an ear infection or something mysteriously known as sudden hearing loss syndrome, but to compound that substantial loss with tinnitus [defined by Merriam-Webster as "a sensation of noise (as a ringing or roaring) that is caused by a bodily condition (as a disturbance of the auditory nerve or wax in the ear) and typically is of the subjective form which can only be heard by the one affected] , which, in my case, manifests itself as an ever-present white noise, just adds insult to injury.

That's the bad part.  But as my wife, family, friends, and all who know me more than peripherally know, I'm a "glass-is-half-full" kind of guy.  So when I discovered that along with the hearing loss, and along with the tinnitus, I was blessed with the gift of a morning visit by Otto-the-Earworm, well, "elated" isn't even close to the right word to describe how I felt.  Nor is ecstatic.  Nor even happy.  None of those words describe how I feel now, either, as ol' Otto has continued to visit.  In fact, he deposits an earworm in what little I have left of a brain, each and every morning.  And I mean every morning.

I use one of those noise generating clocks, otherwise the tinnitus would never let me sleep.  Still, my tinnitus tends to wake me up, and upon awakening, blending high in the mix of white noise and what my clock believes is the sound of the ocean surf crashing upon the rocks, is generally a single line from a song rolling round-and-round my brain.  Sometimes it's not a line from a song, but maybe a guitar riff.  And sometimes it's a dreadful line from a commercial jingle.  Playing over and over and over… While I brush my teeth.  While I drink my coffee.  While I read the newspaper.  (The plus side, hearing "Five…..five dollar….five dollar foot long" echoing around my head often makes the news more palatable.)   Doing the crossword while "There's always tomorrow, for dreams to come true" repeating ad nauseam just adds to the challenge.    

Confronting the insidious repeating line by actually playing the song doesn't help.  In fact, it makes the line stay much longer.  Better to just leave it alone, sing "They were funky China men from funky Chinatown" while I shave, and just try and avoid being nicked.  Eventually it'll go away.  But gone is not forgotten, and a new morning "..is just, a day--a-way…."  Ach.