The D.J. in My Head
Tonight the D.J. in my head is playing an endless loop of Simon and Garfunkel’s “I am a Rock.” I don’t know why. I haven’t heard it recently as far as I know. But the D.J. is like that sometimes. In the mornings recently I’ve had back to back standards going on, which I sing along with loudly, if I’m alone in the house. Sometimes I’ll have a more varied line-up going on. Maybe a Billie Holiday version of ” I Get Along Without You” right next to The Long Winters acoustic version of “Hindsight.” For a couple of weeks I could not hear the windchimes on the front porch without hearing the song “That’s Amore.” It just sounded to me like they were playing the first couple of lines over and over. “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, thats amore!” It was driving me insane. Eventually the friend that I’m staying with put cotton balls inside the chimes to mute their volume, and completely changed the “tune.” Now it just sounds like… muted windchimes.
The ice-cream truck that has been traveling around the neighborhood this summer plays one song, over and over. “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” Why? Why, in God’s name, would an ice-cream truck play that song? It ricochets around my head for hours.And it doesn’t even make sense. Most ice-cream trucks play some sort of innocuous calliope music, why would this one play what is basically a war song? Or a post-war song. Whatever.
I’m just going to mention this one other thing that the D.J. in my head pulls out periodically. The Benediction. I haven’t sung it since I was in the church choir as a teenager. But every once in a while, I’ll find myself humming this tune, and before I know it, I’m singing the words. “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you…” It actually is a rather catchy little tune. But inevitably, someone will turn to me with this look of almost shock on their face and ask, “Are you singing The Benediction?”
The thing is, I never know what will be on the playlist, but I’m ususally really glad that I have the songs in my head, even when it gets annoying. It’s a far better fate than living without them.
