Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Earworms

I suppose I would like to be called a musicellectual snob. I like to tell myself I listen to good old rock, English, classical Hindi anything as long as it’s not those newfangled-dime-a-dozen-typical Hindi film songs ( and hip-hop and boy-bands and Himesh I have to add for the record) which come and equally quickly fade away – just like item girls.

Well, that’s mostly true I suppose – I don’t really have a clue on most Hindi songs which are churned out these days and haven’t really followed them for many, many years.

But there is this strange vague perverse part of me which gets taken over by ONE particular breed of songs while my brain is weeping in agonized protest. A breed of songs which almost always evokes a WTF reaction the first time you hear it and insidiously grows upon you until you catch yourself tapping your fingers to it (another WTF moment) and then before you know it, you stop flipping the channels and wait for the damn thing to come on to listen to it and watch it with this blissful, idiotic smile on your face , while air-guitaring to “dil mein baje guitar” (by this time you are so past the WTF moments, that WTF is contemplating suicide.)

They have this hugely Machiavellian quotient - I discovered this sometime in school. I was casually humming one of them – “rain is falling chamacham cham ladki ne aankh maari gir gaye hum” next to a friend just before an exam. After the paper she came to yell at me claiming that the song playing in loop-mode in her head, had not left ANY bandwidth for the answers she had so carefully memorized. After that, I made it a point to serenade her and other people before exams. A double edged sword actually - the song would not only take over my mind, but also seemingly mutate and multiply (with different lyrics usually composed of the words from the subject I had been studying for)

To be honest, I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why I have this complete fascination with songs which go “brrrrrr” in between lyrics which just don’t make any comprehensible sense whichever way you listen to them ( backwards or forward, upwards or downwards).

I don’t understand how they have this ability to pop into one’s brains at the most inopportune times and completely take over all coherent thought. When in the midst of important strategic meetings, CXO is sprouting profound gyaan and all you can hear is ‘Babuji zara dheere chalo bijli giri ’ coming out from his mouth. And if you suffer from a hyperactive imagination like I do, there is also great likelihood of it being accompanied by a mental video of the said CXO doing some moves with Yana Gupta. A slightly career limiting move, this.

I have tried all kinds of therapies...

Going for long drives (“Aja meri gadi mein baith ja’)
Or
Sleeping (‘Ankh maari, oh ladki aankh maari’)
Or
Watching movies (“Ticket to Bollywood”)
Or
Thinking deep grave thoughts about world economy (Cash Baby..paisa pheko, tamasha dekho)

Sigh.

P.S. My current favourite is ‘Cash baby’ – it’s such a completely absurd song that I love it. Also it has deep meaningful lyrics – “cash in front, cash at the back, cash on my mind, cash all the time”. In increment season, that’s pretty much ALL I have on my mind - The expectation of cash, the lack of cash and the who-shall-i-kill-if-i-don’t- -get-enough-cash..la la la

15 comments:

Mo said...

This has been looping all day. Please watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9_Dk_F98cU

It refuses to leave my head.
(Ask me how I found it? I was looking for "You are my chicken fry")

methinks said...

right. try: welcome, tatarararaa.
and pyaar ka signal from bhagam bhaag.

love, slim:trim

Anonymous said...

LOL!

But I love aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja :D

Cynic in Wonderland said...

mo - chicken fry? aiyo thats even worse than my rain is falling!

p.s. am still waiting for ur post on technicolor dreams!!

et tu rosa? well glad to know im not the only one afflicted with this

chandni - long drive jayenge la la la ..damn it, now i will have this one playing in my head today

Cynic in Wonderland said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Hahahahahaha! Damnit, this SO describes me right now. I used to claim being a music snob and would never listen to anything which didn't fall under the genre of Classic Rock or Grunge or early Rock. I'd make an occasional exception to some Indian or Western classical. Then, disaster happened and I became very close friends with certain people, who I still adore but they're the worst thing to have happened to my music taste since "Nigodi kaisi jawani hai"(which I used to like when I was 5 or 6, please note).
They used to sing "Main nikla gaddi leke" during dinner time, they would make me sing "You're my soniya", they would play "Namak isq ka" (I know ALL the lyrics to this one now and it sometimes still haunts me at night) and "Beedi jalaile" on loop and so on. "Ticket to Hollywood" was one's cell alarm tone, the other one bought a hot black Mac and the first song he played was "Tumse kitna pyaar hai, dil mein utar kar dekh lo" (Altaf Raja)...you get the picture. I consider myself corrupted right now and I'm compulsively listening to The Beatles, Floyd, Purple and the like every day. I hope to redeem myself of every musical sin committed in a couple of months from the present.
By the way, plissss to be watching this saang. It used to be played the whole night. I think I'd just jump off my terrace if I'm made to listen to it again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YunCIzeK-LQ

"Ik thumka tera saare club nu hilawe".
MAN! *runs away traumatised*.

Narendra shenoy said...

Enjoyed!

Cynic in Wonderland said...

drenched - i have friends like that as well ( who i used to make fun of!). i mean i had a friend ( male ) who had sawariya as his caller tune - every time i called him i would swear at him first for inflicting that song and then start talking. however, this is self inflicted ( and ONLY the CATCHY songs aiyo - altaf RAJA drenched? tauba tauba)

narendra fenkx fenks

Anonymous said...

If you want a scientific explanation, this post from a regular reader of mine will be of help. And no, I still prefer to remain anonymous. :-)

http://madhurisinha.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/a-tune-is-stuck-in-my-head/

Cynic in Wonderland said...

i read your reader's post anon. and yes, please do feel free to remain anonymous - makes me feel all important and stalked and all.

Cynic in Wonderland said...

i read your reader's post anon. and yes, please do feel free to remain anonymous - makes me feel all important and stalked and all.

Epiphany said...

The troubling part is that a remixed version of ALL the songs you mentioned are looping in my head now! DAMN!

Soulmate said...

This is cool.. So may be when you want to go to a disc, you can sing: kisi disco mein jaayein, kisi hotel mein khaayein..
:-)

Anonymous said...

Gosh so true. I dont know why this happens with me everytime I need to focus on somthingthing important - like during my exam. I am sick of Dard-e-diso now:(
-Sparsh

Cynic in Wonderland said...

ephipany its contagious? :O

soulmate - everyone is trying to infect me with more earworms now ..bah

sparsh - eggzactly