An ‘Earworm’ is a line or verse from a song that sticks in your mind, repeating over and over. A good one can keep coming around, uninvited for hours or even days at a time. I get them and they are usually wonderful, always welcome, combinations of great poetry and memories or feelings they stir up from my own story. I think of one in particular that kept coming back, sometimes a dozen times a day, sometimes every other day and it kept spilling over for at least a month. Kate Wolf was an absolutely wonderful singer-songwriter who passed away, way too soon. In the early 1980’s she gave us, Here In California, a ballad that reflects on her mother’s advice, not to fall in love too soon. The hook was set in the middle of the first verse. It went, “She held me ‘round the shoulders, In a voice so soft and kind, She said love can make you happy, Love can rob you blind.” Then, like a boxer’s one-two punch she leans straight into the chorus: “Here in California, Fruit hangs heavy on the vines, And there’s no gold, I thought I’d warn you, And the hills turn brown in the summertime.” O.M.G. She (Kate Wolf) passed in 1986 (leukemia) she would have been 81 now; and the hills turn brown in the summertime.
Songwriters are uniquely special, they frame powerful stories that can move you to tears or laugh-out-loud and they do it in a few verses, a bridge and a chorus. Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen were exceptions, their songs went on and on for what seemed like forever but no one complained. Kate Wolf will be ringing in my mind now for who knows how long and that’s alright.
Most recently, the worm that gets my attention is from a Gordon Lightfoot song (1971) If You Could Read My Mind. The song was inspired by his breakup (divorce) and that sense of melancholy always seemed to be introspective rather than judgmental and I liked that. The worm; “And I’ve got to say that I just don’t get it, I don’t know where we went wrong, But the feeling’s gone, And I just can’t get it back.” He was an awesome storyteller, four verses and a chorus.
Then there is Willie. If you get into that collection the earworms don’t end with a line or a verse, you take the whole song where every line builds on the one before. When it reboots to start over you have mouthed all the words from the introduction to the fade. I can lapse into any one of several Willie Nelson songs but the one that comes most often when I’m on the road or someplace else is, Nothing I Can Do About It Now. There is no chorus; the title is the hook line that also serves as a turnaround. I can hear it now: “And I could cry for the time I’ve wasted, But that’s a waste of time and tears, And I know just what I’d change If I went back in time somehow, But there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m forgiving everything that forgiveness will allow, And there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
So I’m blessed with earworms; they may be contagious without getting old, never get in the way. I’ve written a few songs, stories with four verses and a hook but to touch multitudes of others with a timeless message, that has been the fate of Kate Wolf and Willie Nelson. I am a well meaning wannabe but fate did not steer me onto that path. I like the idea of fate but not the absolute, beyond one’s control, predetermined path to an unavoidable destiny. I don’t think fate lies out in the future. It is about how you came to be who and what you are in fact, here and now and there are no do-overs. Fate would be determined by causal forces but they are not predetermined. That flys in the face of traditional thinking, defaulting to the perception of a predetermined destiny. I don’t embrace a fate that exists outside my reach. But taking comfort with nostalgic, insightful, endearing earworms is a fate I can live with.
Songwriters are uniquely special, they frame powerful stories that can move you to tears or laugh-out-loud and they do it in a few verses, a bridge and a chorus. Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen were exceptions, their songs went on and on for what seemed like forever but no one complained. Kate Wolf will be ringing in my mind now for who knows how long and that’s alright.
Most recently, the worm that gets my attention is from a Gordon Lightfoot song (1971) If You Could Read My Mind. The song was inspired by his breakup (divorce) and that sense of melancholy always seemed to be introspective rather than judgmental and I liked that. The worm; “And I’ve got to say that I just don’t get it, I don’t know where we went wrong, But the feeling’s gone, And I just can’t get it back.” He was an awesome storyteller, four verses and a chorus.
Then there is Willie. If you get into that collection the earworms don’t end with a line or a verse, you take the whole song where every line builds on the one before. When it reboots to start over you have mouthed all the words from the introduction to the fade. I can lapse into any one of several Willie Nelson songs but the one that comes most often when I’m on the road or someplace else is, Nothing I Can Do About It Now. There is no chorus; the title is the hook line that also serves as a turnaround. I can hear it now: “And I could cry for the time I’ve wasted, But that’s a waste of time and tears, And I know just what I’d change If I went back in time somehow, But there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m forgiving everything that forgiveness will allow, And there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
So I’m blessed with earworms; they may be contagious without getting old, never get in the way. I’ve written a few songs, stories with four verses and a hook but to touch multitudes of others with a timeless message, that has been the fate of Kate Wolf and Willie Nelson. I am a well meaning wannabe but fate did not steer me onto that path. I like the idea of fate but not the absolute, beyond one’s control, predetermined path to an unavoidable destiny. I don’t think fate lies out in the future. It is about how you came to be who and what you are in fact, here and now and there are no do-overs. Fate would be determined by causal forces but they are not predetermined. That flys in the face of traditional thinking, defaulting to the perception of a predetermined destiny. I don’t embrace a fate that exists outside my reach. But taking comfort with nostalgic, insightful, endearing earworms is a fate I can live with.
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