The Sounds of Silence - Don't I Wish

Oh dear. It’s back. The word association thing. Intermittently, my brain does this thing where I see a picture, or hear a word or phrase, and I start singing a song. No, not aloud, I’m not that far gone. In my head. My brain decides that the word or picture it just encountered means song x and song x starts to play in my head. I draw from a very wide range of music. It’s not just popular, current day stuff. Oh no. If it finds a meaningful association, my brain will start up with any old piece of crap. It doesn’t do me the favour of limiting itself to stuff I enjoy. Hymns. Onwards Christian Soldiers. Why? I’m not a Christian. I guess I have the years of Sunday School to thank. And the interminable afternoons of “Good News” when I was young.
And Xmas carols! That’s another one. How I hate Xmas carols. Why would I sing them? Don’t I get enough of carols in the 4 months preceding Xmas, when every shopping centre is ramming them down my throat in a desperate attempt to propel my hand credit-card-wards? Jovial music warbles cheerfully and incessantly and is piped into every crevice in every mall. No wonder the suicide rate rises over Xmas. It’s not depression from being alone while everyone else is cuddled in the bosoms of loving families or partners. It’s the damned carols.
But back to me. (My favourite topic.)
Sometimes the brain subjects me to nursery rhyme songs. Try working with Jack and Jill belting around in your brain. And around and around and around. Little monsters.
You see, the song doesn’t just give me a line or two and then fade away gracefully. It persists. It keeps on going until I manage to switch out to some other refrain, hopefully slightly less irritating. It’s like a 3 year old “Look Mum! No hands! Look Mum! Look Mum! Look Mum! Muuuuuuum! LOOK!!!!”

This morning I was paging through Blogs of Note, and I stumbled across an Australian Art Gallery blog (udessi.blogspot.com – I really like the Happiest Birds in the World set of paintings. They did look happy. They made me happy.) The first thing that loaded up was a picture of a kookaburra. Quick as a flash, my brain (clearly more wide awake than the rest of me at this ungodly hour, or I would have stopped it in its tracks) kicked in with a rousing rendition of “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. Merry, merry king of the bush is heeeee. Laugh Kookaburra! Laugh Kookaburra! Gay your life might be.” A pox upon those old Girl Guide campfire songs.

Coupled with another curried rice and red pepper breakfast, and the pre-6am wake-up, Kookaburra has left my Friday with significant room to improve.