Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Words




My mind plays a sound track while I ride. I'm not sure if everybody does this or if it's just me. I used to sing to the inside of my helmet during moto rides, even when I was racing. On cycling rides I'll ask the crew if they've heard of this song or that song and I usually get a "no, not really" and I figure it's just because they're younger and don't know the huge sound track that I do. But maybe they just don't have one playing all the time. It can get irritating to have a song stuck on an endless loop in my head. Sometimes it's not a song I really like. On a recent ride I mentioned that the tune King Tut was stuck in there then Mingo piped up and said that Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer was currently running on his play list. So you can guess what replaced King Tut. In fact even now that song is starting to play. No! Stop it! There, that's better.




On one of our night rides Steve A. kept reaching down to adjust his shock. So the Van Halen song Panama started playing. You know "reached down between my legs, eased the seat back". Now that should be playing in your head right now. If it's not then you don't have this problem. On a Forest Meadows night ride I had a tune that I don't even know the name of but it has a chorus that goes "and all the girls say he's pretty fly for a white guy" I mean, where does that even come from?




I took my MP3 player to Munson one summer afternoon with some old Who songs I'd just downloaded and even though I'd heard these songs thousands of times when I combined them with the ride on this perfect afternoon they had a new sound to them. Now when I hear "Rain on Me" I picture that afternoon automatically, kinda like a music video.




I know the words to hundreds of songs. I can't remember your name but I can remember all the words to "Closer to Home" or "Tangled Up In Blue". This makes the mental sound track thing a little easier to explain. It also drives Rupe crazy. When I'm listening to the classic rock station on XM I can (and do) sing along to all the songs. Not only is my voice irritating but he can't believe I know all the words.




So, can you or do you play the mental song game? I bet W.B. does. I've done it for so long I just assumed everyone else did it. Maybe that's not right. Oh well "King Tut" is starting to loop back around again, I've got to go.

3 comments:

  1. Here's one, are you ready for it.....

    "But don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart
    I just don't think it'd understand
    And if you tell my heart, my achy breaky heart
    He might blow up and kill this man"

    Yep, we'll be humming that one all day long.

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  2. I have always said that you you can tell what kind of day you are going to have by what song is stuck in your head.
    Neil Peart (Rush drummer, Motorcyclist, and author) calls it: the internal jukebox.
    I really used to have trouble with this while surfing and once almost drowned with: "Oh Ricky Your So Fine" skipping in my mellon.
    In addition to lyrics I have a bunch of other music info stuck in my head (that takes up file space) where important stuff should go. Producers, drum parts, etc. It ain't easy to keep it on one channel.

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  3. The jukebox plays loud and clear in my head, every ride. Sometimes I try to preset it, by listening to something on the way to my ride, but I find that it rarely works that way. I'll have Rise Against all cued up, and WB will wreck it with that damn Dropkick Murphy's, Shippin' up to Boston, song! My favorite was getting Mr Bojangles stuck in WB's head. He'd complain about how hard it was to pedal to a 3 count beat. I didn't even know what a 3 count beat it was, but it sure made his legs kick funny.

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