# Ear Worm of the Day



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

What song or tune has popped into your mind today - and was it a blast from the past?

Just interested - thank you. :tiphat:


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

My ex polish gf and krakow...They are often on my mind in auatumn and winter in foggy conditions...So hear, here.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Today for me was the Dubliners' song Sullivan's John. It brings back memories of folk song sessions held in pubs - particularly an Irish pub in Ealing in the early 1970s when we were first married. The pub was full of Irish customers and the juke box just played Irish tunes rather than pop songs. We loved it, but the atmosphere got a bit heavy and we decided to stop going after several IRA bombing tragedies.

The bloke singing on the video has a voice that could cut through corrugated iron. 






The lyrics can be found here: https://www.kinglaoghaire.com/lyrics/431-sullivan-s-john


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Her ''mulled wine'' I never got a chance to try...In general a special kind of beauty of Central Europe.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Flamme said:


> Her ''mulled wine'' I never got a chance to try...In general a special kind of beauty of Central Europe.


Dear Flamme, thanks for this, but I just started the thread for 'ear worms', that is songs that have come into your mind.

Not for general memories - otherwise, where would we be! So busy recording fleeting thoughts that there was no time to live! 

That's why I've put it in the non-classical music forum, not the community forum.

Please feel free to edit your posts to include a song you've thought of today.

Or else to find a thread in the community section for family memories.
Maybe here - https://www.talkclassical.com/28491-family-light-past.html?highlight=

Or here. https://www.talkclassical.com/60450-hey-do-you-remember.html?highlight=

Live long & prosper. :tiphat:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Will normally just post one song or 'ear-worm' a day, but just to get the thread going on the right lines, here's another song I thought of, perhaps as a result of the first.

We heard this at pub sessions and folk sessions too, but also had a version on a cassette of shanties that we owned. That version was much more raucous and indecorous than this rather nice Irish version.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Today's was Lonnie Donnegan's Darling Corey (Corrie?), the B side to my elder sister's single record in 1959 - my sister was 16, eight years older than me. I used to admire her winkle-picker shoes and summer dresses bouffed out with net petticoats.






I didn't understand the words at all - 'still house' I heard as steel house, and as for the forty-five strapped to her bosom, I had no idea it was a gun but thought it referred to the size of her bodice. Come to think of it, risk assessment would suggest the unwisdom of picking a banjo with a gun trigger within reach!

The pretty ribbons in her hair did appeal to my little-girlish dreams of beauty, though.

The A side was The Battle of New Orleans, which I also loved, though I didn't like idea of the British running from battle.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I grew up with Doo-***, falling in love with it in the early 1950s. For a while, I was alone in my enthusiasm, as my contemporaries were listening to Tin Pan Alley songs, but the Doo-*** genre provided endless satisfaction. I never became a Doo-*** obsessive as have some I have met who developed and maintained enormous personal libraries of songs. But the teen years are often ones when melodies, songs, become deeply ingrained in the memory. Here is a big favorite: _The Ship of Love_ by The Nutmegs, who also gave us the classic _Story Untold_--


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## Kyler Key (Aug 4, 2020)

Not sure if this counts, but I had this little tune stuck in my head, so I brought it into reality.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

So far today, Caro Emerald's "Liquid Lunch" is stuck firmly in my head and won't go away.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Fun thread concept...

For the last six weeks it's been "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey.

What's worse is that I'm singing the tune out loud.

And what's even worse than that is that I'm pretending to hold an imaginary microphone while singing the tune out loud.

And what's even worse than that is that I've mastered that little leg pivot she does (see the 1:11 mark of the video) whilst pretending to hold an imaginary microphone while singing the tune out loud.

As of right now I don't have any plans to purchase either the white barrette or a short red mini skirt - thank God for small favors - but you never know as craziness is a rather slippery slope.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

*Last Christmas
I gave you my heart
But the very next day
You gave it away . . . . . . . . *​


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## Zauberfloete (Dec 2, 2020)

The "Heute noch, lieber Vater" aria from Bach's Kaffee-Kantata (BWV 211).

I hadn't listened or thought about it for some 25 years... and then for some mysterious reason today it came back to mind (and I wasn't even drinking coffee. :lol: ) and I had to find it on the web.






In fact, I ended up listening to the whole Kaffee-Kantata, while in my younger days I had only been familiar with this aria.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Prompted by the post above and another on the current listening thread I've now got Humble Pie's Steve Marriott singing 'Black Coffee' stuck in my head.






Simpler times - I was 16 when this was recorded........


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## Zauberfloete (Dec 2, 2020)

Ingélou said:


> We heard this at pub sessions and folk sessions too, but also had a version on a cassette of shanties that we owned. That version was much more raucous and indecorous than this rather nice Irish version.


Big fan of the Sweeney's Men, here. I like their arrangements of traditional songs, very gentle and melodic (for example, their arrangement of _Rattlin, Roarin Willie_ compared to the Dubliners' arrangement). Also, they played some tunes and songs that I have never heard played by other Irish folk musicians (several from Scotland, like _Willie O' Winsbury_, or Northern England, such as _Dance Ti Thy Daddy_) and that further expanded my repertoire.

Speaking of which, I'm listening to _Dance to your daddy_ right now, one of my favs.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Sunburst Finish said:


> Fun thread concept...
> 
> For the last six weeks it's been "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey.
> 
> ...


Very difficult to go wrong with Mariah Carey--a consummate performer!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Zauberfloete said:


> Big fan of the Sweeney's Men, here. I like their arrangements of traditional songs, very gentle and melodic (for example, their arrangement of _Rattlin, Roarin Willie_ compared to the Dubliners' arrangement). Also, they played some tunes and songs that I have never heard played by other Irish folk musicians (several from Scotland, like _Willie O' Winsbury_, or Northern England, such as _Dance Ti Thy Daddy_) and that further expanded my repertoire.
> 
> Speaking of which, I'm listening to _Dance to your daddy_ right now, one of my favs.


I love Rattlin Roaring Willie - you've put that one into my head now! 






This doesn't go far back with me - I came across it four years ago when working through my Scottish Fiddle Guide with my violin teacher (Fiddle Guru :tiphat.

But my history with Burns songs goes way back - my father was a Scot who watched The White Heather Club and played Kenneth McKellar a lot, and then at an English University I chose to study Burns for one of my essay subjects and had a great time singing though all the songs while my college room-mate was out - got mad when my tutor dismissed Burns as just a dialect poet!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

This popped into my mind the other day when Taggart came up with the word 'valiant' in a word game we were playing. Johnson, the noble butcher who's betrayed by his own good deed, is 'a valiant man and a man of valiant mind'. We had Martin Carthy LPs and this was on one of them - The Two Butchers, with Dave Swarbrick.

This brings back memories of when we lived in Durham for nine years and used to go to the annual Folk Festival and to various folk events in pubs, notably The Big Jug in Claypath and The Marquis of Granby on Gilesgate Moor, where we saw Martin Carthy once. Taggart was on 'the folk committee' which met in The Shakespeare Pub in Saddler Street and we went weekly to English and Scottish country dancing classes and lots of Saturday nights to Ceilidhs at The Town Hall. Happy Days!


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

This isn't the sort of thing that usually becomes an ear worm... But for some reason, today it doesn't want to go away.


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## Zauberfloete (Dec 2, 2020)

Ingélou said:


> This popped into my mind the other day when Taggart came up with the word 'valiant' in a word game we were playing. Johnson, the noble butcher who's betrayed by his own good deed, is 'a valiant man and a man of valiant mind'. We had Martin Carthy LPs and this was on one of them - The Two Butchers, with Dave Swarbrick.


Brilliant, I didn't know this song! Thanks


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

This one popped into my mind because with one eye still to have a cataract operation I am a bit one-eyed myself. Of course the true version is unspeakably bawdy - the singer is not tempted to 'marry' O'Riley's daughter! (The full version, with a graphic description of vengeance against O'Riley, the outraged father, apparently used to reduce C. S. Lewis to helpless fits of laughter).

This version by the Clancy brothers we had for years on an LP which we finally rehomed when we moved house a year ago, but I think I must have heard it on the TV when I was in my teens.

Whatever, we were reading T. S. Eliot's play The Cocktail Party in class - our A-level set text - and the part I was reading comes in singing a snatch of 'The One-Eyed Riley'. Since I knew the tune, I sang it - much to the surprised pleasure of the teacher, who must have got sick of people just reading the lines. There's a theme of vision in the play - another character, Julia, keeps looking for her glasses. But the song is all I really remember now!

Anyway, I think being one-eyed is overrated.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

I'm particularly susceptible to "syllabic vocalizations" or "nonsense lyrics" - especially those, as mentioned by @strangemagic, in the doo-*** genre (which was a little before my time as I'm vintage 1956 but one which I have been avidly pursuing for several years now).

Here are five examples of earworms which have been playing in non-stop rotation for about 10 (and counting) days now -

"Come and Go With Me" by The Dell-Vikings

"Rama Lama Ding Dong" by The Edsels

"I Wonder Why" by Dion and the Belmonts

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens

"My True Story" by The Jive Five

Three of the five songs "Rama Lama Ding Dong", "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and "My True Story" are particularly insidious as they contain "high notes" - really "high notes" - sky-high nose-bleed "high notes" that I just find to be absolutely irresistible - I can't help myself - I insist upon trying to reach those "high notes" even though I couldn't actually do so even if I was gelded (such situation remaining "theoretical" as one has to draw the line somewhere and for me that line has been drawn at "being neutered in order to reach the high notes".

But that doesn't stop me from trying. As I mentioned in a previous post I'm not content to let the earworms work solo in my fevered brain - I insist on joining in on the "sing-a-long" much to the chagrin and bitter regret of those near and dear to me. I love to sing - just absolutely love it - but my ability to do so is in inverse proportion to my ability to actually do so but again, that doesn't stop me as I'm a firm believer in the maxim "volume trumps talent".


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Debating the future of the free world isn't sufficiently important enough to prevent CNN from airing commercial breaks every ten minutes with one commercial being on constant rotation - 6 times an hour twenty four hours a day seven days a week.

"Geico Insurance - Tag Team Helps With Dessert" -






It's an insanely catchy tune -

""French vanilla, rocky road, chocolate, peanut butter, cookie dough. Scoop, there it is" - ""Shaka-laka-shaka-laka-shaka-laka"

I typed those words from memory - that's how deeply the tune has burrowed itself into my brain.

It's not the fact that I know the lyrics by heart that worries me.

It's not the fact that I know the lyrics by heart and that I'm once again singing them out loud that worries me.

And it's not the fact that I know the lyrics by heart, that I'm once again singing them out loud, and that I've now incorporated and mastered the dance steps featured in the video at the :21 second mark that worries me.

What worries me is that I actually spent over an hour in front of our bedroom mirror practicing those moves - with my iPad propped against the table lamp - I kept playing the video - stopping and pausing and playing - over and over and over - until my moves are perfected to such an extent that I'm actually better than the guy in the video - a lot better.

I'm not entirely certain why attaining that mastery was of such vital importance but I most certainly know that this particular skill will be of literally no value whatsoever and thus I've decided to take comfort in that certainty rather than brood incessantly by dwelling on having wasted over an hour of my time that I'll never get back. I did, however, provide the cats with over an hour's worth of entertainment - which they observed with equal parts amused curiosity and unbridled contempt - probably leaning more towards "unbridled contempt" rather then "amused curiosity" but my New Years' resolution is to be "less negative and more positive" and so "amused curiosity" it is.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

Inspired by "The State of Modern Operatic Singing" in the opera forum, I decided to do some back to back comparisons. I chose "Una voce poco fa". That was on Friday. I still can't get it out of my mind.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

At your own peril


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Azol said:


> At your own peril


I didn't even have to listen to it, my memory just pulled it forward and now I'm stuck with it - thanks a bundle


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Malx said:


> I didn't even have to listen to it, my memory just pulled it forward and now I'm stuck with it - thanks a bundle


Ow, sorry! But you should know better when opening a can (thread) of ear-worms.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Azol said:


> Ow, sorry! But you should know better when opening a can (thread) of ear-worms.


Only joking Azol - but you are right it does dig it's way into the brain


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