Poll: how much music plays in your head?

[Flint]

All day, every day.
Might appear random, but always attributable back to an event which precipitated the song.

Could be a few words out of a sentence someone said made a partial match, either semantically or thematically, to the words of a song I know.

Could be the words to the song are an answer to (or analysis of) an emotional event I'm wrestling with. This means that my subconscious is trying so hard to help me figure out a problem, it literally sends a message to my consciousness, encoded in bits of data from my memory banks.

The reason I'm stuck on a song is usually word-based, but can also be a rhythm or melody I've become obsessed with. It just sounds like the most captivating piece of music, and I go over and it again and again, trying to decode the magic that makes it catchy.



I heard "Sunset Grill" by Don Henley at the grocery store on Monday morning, and two parts of that song have held a fascination for me all week:
1) The keyboard phrase that opens the song, and prefaces the verse that comes after the keyboard solo. This is a very creepy phrase, and falls under the category of, "how do you write something like that?"
2) The bridge section that prefaces the keyboard solo. I love dramatically up-transposing 1980s bridge sections. I try to sing this in the shower (tuesday, wednesday, and thursday), although it goes way above my vocal range.



I don't remember if there have been other songs this week.
Maybe only one song at a time is held in that "repeat" file.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Flint

I heard "Sunset Grill" by Don Henley at the grocery store on Monday morning, and two parts of that song have held a fascination for me all week:
1) The keyboard phrase that opens the song, and prefaces the verse that comes after the keyboard solo. This is a very creepy phrase, and falls under the category of, "how do you write something like that?"

This intrigged me, so I investigated. Benmont Tench is the keys player and gets a songwriting credit.

Benmont Tench is a Heartbreaker, as in Tom Petty and the *. But y'know what... Benmont Tench doesn't have one songwriting credit on any Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers albums.

So maybe Mr. Tench had this one in his back pocket for a while, and Tom always told him that it was a little too much for anything in their catalogue.

Just speculatin'

2) The bridge section that prefaces the keyboard solo. I love dramatically up-transposing 1980s bridge sections. I try to sing this in the shower (tuesday, wednesday, and thursday), although it goes way above my vocal range.

It is the best section of the song.

I mark the song down, though, for two aspects.

1) It up-transposes again, this time by one note, for the final bit. I just personally find that to be a hokey songwriting trick most of the time. (It shares that trick with "My Baby Takes the Morning Train", for example.)

2) As with Mr. Phil Collins before him, here you have a drummer who over-employs the shitty drum machines of the early 80s. Not one real drum on the song. Sir are you not offended.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I mark the song down, though, for two aspects.

1) It up-transposes again, this time by one note, for the final bit. I just personally find that to be a hokey songwriting trick most of the time. (It shares that trick with "My Baby Takes the Morning Train", for example.)

2) As with Mr. Phil Collins before him, here you have a drummer who over-employs the shitty drum machines of the early 80s. Not one real drum on the song. Sir are you not offended.

As a whole, I mark the song down for the 2-3 minutes of aimless keyboard noodling that occurs after the song should have faded out. It's like 6 minutes long, and I'm sorry but you better be a progressive band with elaborate song sections to sustain an over 5-minute length.

Aimless noodling over a repeating pattern is the reason--I think--that Rush's album Caress of Steel reviewed poorly. They were trying too hard to be a 'standard rock' band, and not playing to their song-structuring strengths. Except in Bastille Day. Great song, and also a great message, that the Ayn Rand-reading Rush fans should remember, along with their fevered anti-communist fantasies.



ANSWER TO THE QUESTION:
Yes, more than one song can get stuck in the repeat file, because Bastille Day is the other one I've been stuck on all this week. Also, singing in the shower. Presumably both in the same shower, at some point.