On Having A Song Stuck In Your Head All Weekend

My weekend was ruined.

All because of one song.

It all started Friday night, when I went to the dance. I danced to this one song, “Shut Up and Dance,” by Walk the Moon (which is not Walk Off the Earth), and fortunately, Emily was there to tell me the song’s title and artist. That reminded me of another song which I had heard several times, that sounded sort of similar, but not exactly the same.

And of course, I couldn’t remember a single lyric.

I knew the general tune, and that it went “boom boom boom” something, and I knew that if I heard it just once, I’d be like, oh, of course, that song. Friday came and went, but by yesterday afternoon, after dance class, I was humming the song in my head again. I just couldn’t get it out. And the worst part was that I didn’t even know what I was singing.

And it was tearing me to pieces.

I kept thinking of every single other similar sounding song: “Drive By,” (Train); “50 Ways to Say Goodbye” (Train); “Maps” (Maroon 5); “Animals” (Maroon 5); “Counting Stars” (One Republic); “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Fall Out Boy); “Glad You Came” (The Wanted)…and that was when I realized that three-quarters of the songs released by male artists in the last five years all sound exactly the same.

Anyway, I was up until 3 AM last night, going to extreme measures. I was using up my bandwidth to listen to every song by every group from the last five years that sounded even remotely similar to the one I was looking for. I scoured Wikipedia, Google, and SoundsJustLike.com for anything to trigger a memory. Today, I even made a Pandora channel for “50 Ways” in hopes that that song would come up (strangely, I got a lot of Adele, not that I’m complaining). It was literally pounding at my frontal lobe; no grading, no homework, just find that damn song so you can get some sleep tonight. It wasn’t until I downloaded Spotify and played two full playlists of contemporary 127 BPM or higher jive songs that I finally found it. Then I realized that it’s Sunday night and I’ve barely made a dent in grading.

And that’s how to ruin a perfectly good weekend by looking for a song.

I guess after all that, I should let you know what the song was…but I won’t!

 

 

 

…Just kidding, it was “Runaway Baby” by Bruno Mars. Have a listen.

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Things I Can Do, Things I Can Did

Today, I managed to:

• Get up at 6 AM to make my houseguests breakfast.
• Make it to Engineering by 9 AM to assist a workshop for APO Region Rally.
• Make it on time to Gordon Commons for Standard competition, Newcomer Waltz and Quickstep (no placement though, boo 😦 ).
• Return to Engineering by 1 PM to lead my very own workshop.
• Participate in advisory roundtable.
• Get back to Gordon Commons for Newcomer Latin, dance in 4 heats (Cha Cha/Samba/Rumba/Jive), then 4 quarter-finals, then 4 semi-finals (+ an extra semi-final for Samba/Jive), and earn 5th place in the Samba final.
• Make it to APO banquet in time to hear Maggie Katz speak.
• Participate in the biggest Fellowship Circle I’ve seen in 6 years.
• Get to Target before they closed for snacks and some medicine because I’ve been coughing/sneezing.

Exhausting? Yes.

Am I tired? Debatable.

Did I think I could get it all done, and be on time for everything? No.

But did I accomplish it? Yes, I did.

Could I do it again? With enough rest, less coughing, and higher temperatures, absolutely.