Saturday, April 26, 2008

She has funny cars - earworm edition

One of the great bonuses of blogging is sharing some of my lifelong earworms. It seems I have hummed the following songs my whole life... is that even possible?

And so, this very late Friday night, I am awake and spreading the curse of the earworms.

:: I defy you to get this first tune out of your head. It was the innocent, playful theme of a Saturday morning children's show for baby-boomers--and it is possibly the most earwormy TV theme ever written. I DARE you to play this all the way through without serious auditory side effects. (Warning: video clip below contains beginning and ending theme.) You can't erase it from the memory; it simply CAN NOT be done. For godsake, they even haul out the kazoos! Surrender Dorothy!

:: The second song is similarly deadly, even downright evil in it's apoplectic catchiness--coming complete with singable sha-la-las. Mick Ralphs left the band for Bad Company shortly after this, but the great riff comes from Luther Grosvenor (ex-Spooky Tooth) who played with Mott the Hoople under the name Ariel Bender (which was British slang for vandalizing car antennae). Mott was fronted by the fabulous Ian Hunter, who also wrote a pretty good book in diary form, about the band's 1972 tour.

Possibly the earwormiest rock song ever written.

:: The third song is extremely sneaky and insidious--since it's psychedelic, it's not possible to utilize the infectious nursery-rhyme vibe like the first two songs... but ahhh, it snags you with that Spencer Drydenesque and thus totally unidentifiable time signature (what IS it, will someone PLEASE TELL ME?)... eventually, it worms it's way into your head and stays.

Of course, it is also philosophical:

Your mind's guaranteed
It's all you'll ever need
So what do you want with me?


You'll find that if you ever actually like the song enough to sing it, you WILL eventually say those words to somebody in real life. Beware.

~*~

As a special treat, we'll have a generous helping of 70s TV-Land nostalgia while we're at it, since we start with the Bugaloos theme:



~*~

Mott The Hoople - Roll Away The Stone

[via FoxyTunes / Mott the Hoople]


~*~

Jefferson Airplane - She has funny cars

[via FoxyTunes / Jefferson Airplane]