For several weeks I played Neil Young’s “Cowgirl in the Sand” on repeat. (I’m sure my neighbours loved it.) I still can’t listen to it without pressing Repeat at least once.
Also I have a scratchy tape of Joni Mitchell singing “You Turn Me On (I’m a Radio)” that I will rewind again and again, and have done so since I originally got the tape seven or eight years ago. (It’s a live version that I can’t find on CD).
Of course, there are always hit songs that people really dig when they’re popular (like that fucking Lisa Loeb song my roommate played constantly for a week, and then forgot about). I’m really wondering about the old songs that keep making you reach for the Repeat button, years after everyone else has stopped listening.
I think we should include songs that are on “Repeat” with nary a CD player in sight.
In other words, songs that go beyond “stuck in your head for a day or so” – you’ve sung them to yourself on and off for years!
There’s a great stairwell at my work, great acoustics, never anyone in it. It often gets filled up with me singing “Marakesh Express”. Has since '96.
At full volume. In various styles – one day Sinatra doing swing, next day Joanis doing the blues. And imagine Pavarotti: Cleeeeeeear Morrooooccan Skiii-i-iiies…
This Ruined Puzzle by Dashboard Confessional is on heavy rotation for me right now as is My Immortal by Evanescence from the Daredevil soundtrack. Yes… I am in a melancholy mood and wallowing in it with songs like these.
About anything by Dire Straits with a good instrumental. While writing my thesis I kept the CD player stuck on Skateaway, Where do you think you’re going? And On every street. I switched to writing in the evenings after a few less-than-subtle death threats by the other grad students that shared the office.
Hotel California and Ring of Fire, listening to their sweet sounds remind me of a better time. Sometimes I think I spend more money on the jukebox than on beer.
Clocks by Coldplay and Trouble by Lindsey Buckingham. The first choice is obvious–fairly new, VERY catchy tune, but the second one I have no good explanation for.
“Sweet Thing,” Van Morrison
“Mother,” Tori Amos
“Wish You Were Here,” Pink Floyd (when I need to cry)
“Over the Hills and Far Away,” Led Zeppelin
“What I Am,” Eminem
“The End of the Innocence”, “Sky High” by Jigsaw (Art Bell used to play it as bumper music), “Losing My Religion” and “Walk Away Rene.” But only when I’m alone. I play them over and over and over and well, you know.
I tend to not like repeating songs over and over etc., but I’ve got one that I consistently do this to : REM’s cover of “Wall of Death” . Works especially well considering the theme of the song, and that it begins, “Let me ride on the Wall of Death one more time …”
I listened to “Morning Train (9 to 5)” by Sheena Easton 20 times in a row once. I was (and still am, a bit) intrigued by the drum track, along with the keen vocal delivery by Ms. Easton and the background singers.
Sam Stone came home,
To the wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas.
And the time that he served,
Had shattered all his nerves,
And left a little shrapnel in his knees.
But the morhpine eased the pain,
And the grass grew round his brain,
And gave him all the confidence he lacked,
With a purple heart and a monkey on his back.
I once made up a whole compilation CD of things that I frequently got stuck in my head.
Unfortunately, it appears to be at work.
In particular, “House of Stone and Light” by Martin Page, “Moonlight Shadow” by Mike Oldfield, and TMBG’s “Ana Ng” were all on there, as well as a cover of “Voices Carry” by a local a cappella group. And now that I’ve thought about the compilation, the other twelve will all come 'round to haunt me over the next 24 hours . . .
I tend to cycle my repeats, ad I listen to entire CDs, rather than specific songs. One week, it’s the Evita soundtrack, the next, one of my Minstrels of Mayhem CDs. This week, I’ve been listening to Leo Kottke, and last week it was Diana Krall.
I think the last single song I did this with was Somos la Semilla by Ricky Martin because I was trying to memorize the words in Spanish.
