I returned from the Erma Bombeck
Writer's Workshop renewed, refreshed, reinvigorated, and ready to
write.
And infected with the mother of all
earworms.
Oh, I've had songs stuck in my head
before – goofy little musical snippets that come and go within a
an hour (or so). But this is the entire Billy Joel catalog. All
the time.
For more than a week now.
As earworms go, it's not that bad.
Joel's richly layered instrumentals, his melt-your-panties voice and
multi-genre mastery mean something different is always playing – in
my brain. Rock, pop, do-wop, ballads, instrumentals, gospel, a Latin
beat, classical....
But after a while? (Say... a week?) The
novelty wears off.
I think that variety (and seductive
voice) is what exposed me to the earworm in the first place. I
listened to the Billy Joel channel on XM radio for the entire
eight-hour drive from Eastern Iowa to Dayton, Ohio. I don't remember
any repeats until half-way through Indiana, and by then I was a
goner, hypnotized by that voice. Mmmmm, that voice....
Still, the soundtrack in my brain
didn't start playing until after I listened to the same
channel for the entire return trip as well. That's 16 hours of
Billy Joel in 4 days, not including driving around while (getting
lost) in Dayton. Technically I think you could say at that point the
music merely provided a background for my eight-hour Billy Joel
fantasy (in which we run away together and live happily ever after).
When I finally pulled in to the driveway at home, I felt kind of guilty about dreaming of running away. Then I realized the family had piled their dirty dishes on the
counter right next to the empty dishwasher, and the baskets of
clean laundry had still not been put away. I decided Billy
Joel was right:
Sometimes a fantasy is all you
need... to keep you from killing
your family.
After a couple days of “All Billy
Joel, All the Time” playing in my head, I had had enough. I tried to force him out by listening to other types of
music. But XM radio was in cahoots with the earworm. Both the 80's and Deep Tracks channels (my stand-bys) teamed up to
promote the heck out of the Billy Joel channel by playing – what
else? – Billy Joel songs.
When I finally did find something else
to listen to, it triggered a sonic smackdown in my brain. It was bad
enough when one Billy Joel tune tried to forced out another (Rootbeer
Rag is particularly tenacious), but when I introduced a new
artist things really got ugly. The reverb from “Billy vs. The
Bangles” gave me a headache that left me whimpering in the driver's
seat.
Then I switched to the “if you
can't beat 'em, join 'em” method. It may seem counter-intuitive, but
I've resorted to playing Billy Joel music on my iPod while I try to
work. Having his music in the background seems to pacify some
auditory gate keeper while freeing up functional brain space for
other things. Things like writing, reading, carrying on a
conversation... breathing.
My Darling Daughter, the Princess,
decided this was a sign of weakness and instituted a cold-turkey, “No
Joel Anytime” intervention. Her “cure” caused a variety of
withdrawl symptoms, including a physical craving so severe I tried to
sneak out on a totally unnecessary errand just so I drive the
XM-equipped car. She caught me and commandeered the keys, because in
our family the driver gets to choose the radio station.
Unless Mom's driving.
And that may be the real cause
of my current Billy Joel obsession. On my fateful Iowa/Ohio/Iowa
roadtrip I had complete control of the radio. And I chose to listen
to Billy Joel. For 16-plus hours.
And that may be why my family
doesn't let me control the radio when they're with me.
The influence of this earworm has gone
way beyond normal. It was bad enough when I started unconsciously
changing lyrics (Midwest girl, She's been living in her corn-fed
world...), but then I realized the earworm was getting involved
in my internal monolog:
Me: “Gosh, I've had these Billy Joel
tunes running through my head for a long time. I wonder if this is
normal, or if ...”
Earworm: I may be crazy.
You may be thinking I need to lighten
up, or at least sit back and enjoy the free mental downloads. Sooner
or later this earworm is bound to pack up and infect someone else.
Someday I'll wake up all bleary-eyed and fuzzy-eared with a nasty
musical hangover. I'll shake my head at my iPod filled with Billy
Joel tunes and wonder what came over me.
You may be wrong, for all I know.
But you may be right.
