	Bob Hostetler > Writing

The Songs in My Head

by Bob Hostetler

I’ve never pretended to be sane.

Still, I like to believe (like Chief Inspector Dreyfus in the “Pink Panther” movies) that every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.

But if the songs in my head are any indication, that’s not the case.

I hope you know what I’m talking about. I’d hate to think that I’m the only one with almost a constant playlist of songs running through my head, from my first waking moment to my last conscious thought at night.

I don’t ask for these songs to play. I never think, “What song would I like to play next?” In fact, some of the songs in my head are so irritating (and so very worn out after years of this) that I will try any number of tricks to get them to stop. But sooner or later, they come back, unbidden.

It would be different, of course, if any of these were songs I particularly like. It wouldn’t be so bad if the songs in my head were Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey” or “Just Like Greta.” Or Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s “In the Beginning.” I could even handle some more modern stuff like Maroon 5 or Keane.

But the songs in my head are not there to soothe or entertain. They don’t reflect my musical tastes. They just pop up, most of them like unwelcome ghosts from a distant past.

The most common song in my head, believe it or not, is the theme song from the television show Green Acres. It starred Eddie Albert and Zsa Zsa Gabor. And a pig named Arnold. And the theme song proclaimed, “Greeeeen Acres is the place to be/Farm living, that’s the life for me/Land stretching out both far and wide/Keep Manhattan just give me that countryside.” I could go on to the next verse if you like.

It’s utterly annoying. Absolutely poisonous. And I find myself singing the song in my head (sometimes aloud, even) while brushing my teeth, standing in line at the bank, driving to an appointment. It’s maddening.

And that’s just the beginning. Remember the Looney Tunes theme? That’s another one. I don’t know the words. I don’t even know if there ever were words to this tune (other than Porky Pig’s signature, “Th-th-that’s all, folks!”). But it’s another of the most familiar songs in my head.

As is an old hymn tune which I learned as “Covenant.” This is actually the exception to the rule, because I happen to like this tune, which most often accompanies the words, “There is a fountain filled with blood/Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins/And sinner’s plunged beneath the flood/Lose all their guilty stains.” But as nice a tune as it is, I’d rather not be singing it to myself while standing in line to see the latest Disney movie.

Some of the other songs, just as virulent, are “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” “Yankee Doodle” (which usually leads, understandably, to “Yankee Doodle Dandy”), and a song I can only describe as the “nursery rhyme song” (we used to sing it as kids to accompany “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,” “Jack and Jill went up the hill,” and other such rhymes, back and forth, in a campfire circle competition. I don’t even know if it has a name.) Oh, and one more: the 1977 Heart song, “Barracuda.”

Why does this happen to me? Why is it these irritating songs and not more palatable, more melodious tunes? I don’t know. I wish I did. I wish there were a pill I could take to cure this affliction.

But until then…

“The chores!”

“The stores!”

“Fresh air!”

“Times Square!”

“You are my wife…goodbye, city life!

Green acres…we…are…there!”

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