I was driving home today on I-95 coming up the Conencticut Coast just outside New Haven when all of a sudden (mind you I did not have the radio on) I burst out with:
Deeesperado…
Why don’t you come to your senses…?
You’ve been out rid’in fenses for so long…
Blah…blah…blah…
I was a bit taken aback because I am not the kind of man to just suddenly burst into song…I may sing along if a good 80’s glam rock tune comes on or if my favorite song from Nickleback is playing…but the EAGLES???. Not that I don’t like the eagles…but come on now…
I felt a little odd…kinda tourette’s meets the Partridge family odd. But I shrugged it off and continued with my…
So any dopers ever burst into song? And if so, any repeat offenders?
You bet! Happens all the time. Benefits of a classical education.
And I say to the gods I have wedded this blade
and will take no other wife;
I have bones for a bride-price and a barrow for a bed
and the blood of my enemies…
to dress us both in red!
Sometimes, when I’m really tired and really punchy, I’ll suddenly start singing “Home on the Range.” Should this happen when you are in the immediate vicinity, just back away slowly and no one will get hurt.
So, you’re saying that suddenly bursting into song for no reason is abnormal? sigh Put another notch in my weirdo belt, then. I do it quite a bit. Everything from Ella Fitzgerald to Tori Amos to Metallica to the Animaniacs. It usually has at least some relation to whatever it is I’m doing at the time.
But I-95 throught Connecticut is one of the most godawful stretches of highway in my entire experience, so I can’t blame you. Though I probably wouldn’t have chosen “Desperado.” I save that one for special occasions.
I constantly sing to myself: walking to and from work, toodling around the office, housecleaning, posting on the message board . . . Usually old vaudeville and nightclub “belt” numbers like “Some of These Days,” “There Ain’t No Sweet Man That’s Worth the Salt of My Tears,” “Blues in the Night,” or pop songs like “Horses, Horses, Horses,” “Fido is a Hot Dog Now” or “Ragtime Cowboy Joe.”
I do it all the time, mainly because I am cursed with the habit of getting songs, any songs, stuck in my head for a day or three at a time. Yesterday and today were taken up by spontaneous outbursts of Barenaked ladies songs, mostly The Old Apartment, but also Brian Wilson.
Tomorrow it’ll probably be The Housemartins or something.
Yeah the I-95 corridore between NYC and the southeastern Shore is Hell. And I travel it at least once a month.
I was shocked when I read some of the songs people get stuck into their head…then I realized that. “Holy Shit! this happens to me more than I consciously recall…”
I was with my wife the other day in Target and I think I started singing in a low almost inaudible tone…"*Eighteen wheels and dozen roses…two more miles…to the county liiiiine…" :eek:
And I don’t even like Country music…
However, my wife shot me a look of :dubious: - when I started spontaneously singing, " So…who’s bed have yur boots been under…"
Had you been there you’d have laughed, as I am the antithesis of a country music lover…I think I need my hypnotherapist…I need some past life regression sessions…Oh god I hope I wasn’t a country singer in a past life!
The spontaneous bursting into song doesn’t worry me. It’s when I start dancing up and down the subway platforms and swinging on lamp posts that I wonder about myself. Show tunes, classical, standards, pop, rock, country, hymns… you name it, I’ve broken out in melody at one time or another.
It happens to me on a daily basis, at least. There’s no telling what it might be: showtunes, commercial jingles, TV theme songs, popular music, not-so-popular music, etc… I don’t let it bother me any more, but some of the people at work think I’m nuts.
The rest of them have known it for quite some time.
I sing at random. It happens particularly often now that I have kids, but I always did it (DangerDad claims that he’s constantly amazed at what I come up with–we’ve been together almost 10 years now and I can still come up with songs he’s never heard). I guess it is a slightly odd habit, now that I come to think of it. I must have picked it up from my mom, who used to put her own words to the Star Wars theme song, among other things.
Just this morning, I sang a song about Crunch Berries:
I like Crunch Berries, I like Crunch Berries
I like Crunch Berries, I like Crunch Berries
I like Crunch Berries, I like Crunch Berries
I like Crunch Berries, I like Crunch Berries
I went home and I ate a bowl of cereal
I went home and I ate a bowl of cereal
—The AAA song, by the Preoccupied Pipers --a real song, really! The next verse is about head cheese.
That one did not please DangerGirl. She didn’t like the next one either, which was made up and about pooping.
I also like to sing Gilbert & Sullivan, old 80’s pop songs, hymns, or anything else that pops into my head.
What has never happened is that other people will break into four-part harmony with me, combined with in step, appropriate to the music, perfectly choreographed dancing (See “Consider Yourself” or “Who Will Buy?” in the movie Oliver!) but someday, it will happen.
I know it will.
Maybe if I go to London.
But, in the meantime, I break out in song several times/week.
“Don’t worry if it’s not good enough, for anyone else to hear -
Just sing, Sing a song!”
I do this all the time when alone at home, to the alarm and confusion of the cats. Usually, some word or phrase I’ve just read or heard reminds me of a line in a song… and off I go! (For example, the mention of any of the actors or films named in the opening number of the Rocky Horror Picture Show will trigger that). Sometimes, it’s almost a subliminal thing; I’ll find myself bursting out with a song I haven’t thought of in years and wonder “Where the heck did that come from?” and then trace it back to something I’d read 5 minutes earlier.
When I used to have a car without a working radio, I’d sing for myself while driving.
ah…um…i can see now that i have a problem. spontaneous singing is nothing compared to spontaneous medlies…
down in the west texas town of el paso, i fell in love with a mexican girl…where, oh, where are you tonight? why did you leave me here all alone? i searched the world over, and i thought i found true love, you met another and…phfft. i was gone
i’ve been doing it all my life. my family hates me.
emekthian - this is not uncommon. Many times I will ask my nephew (14) what he is humming…and more often tha not he’ll say things like:
:rolleyes: Jeez uncle…it’s the new theme music to Grand Turismo IV or Star wars Knights of the old Republic…or the newest one… Splinter Cell.
Granted I hve no idea what these games really are…but he hums the tunes all damn day!
For me…my wife and I just got back from Dinner and I was humming " Take me down to the Paradise city: by Guns N’Roses. :rolleyes: No idea where that came from!
For some reason Meatloaf’s On a hot summer night song is one of my favorites, unfortunately, do to a full hard drive, I remember about 1/8 of the words.
Let me sleep on it
Baby baby
Let me sleep on it
Blah blah blah blah till the mooooorning.
But what I like to do best in my modest attempts to take over the world, is hum a ditty of a well known song. Usually an older song. ARound friends. Then several days later someone will beg me to tell them what song was that I was humming because they can’t get it out of their mind*.
