Rockin' Robin..

..tangential to the theme of this Paul Mirengoff's post above, I posit that there is the phenomenon of hearing and not being unable to "unhear" bad songs, musical numbers, instrumentals, etc. Several loom large in my throbbing brain:

(1) Rocking Robin, that I so desperately despise, I began wondering when the last time I would hear it in my lifetime would be. Then, with old age and the persistence of the song as an "moldy oldy", I realized that this sentiment might be "unthought" as would be in my last days in a hospital or hospice care facility being tended to by a comely but rude, gum-snapping millennial (or whatever they would be in those days) who would have that as a her favorite tune.) I would fade into eternity with that song marking my departure, tinkling in my ears.

(2) Shotgun by Junior Walker and the All Stars. I despised that tune in the Spring of '65 when I was a freshman at UCLA. Our fraternity cook -- a large colored lady from Watts named Florida Taylor (who later turned out to be a Reagan Republican) played that constantly much to my dismay at first. But while serving kitchen duty as a pledge, her inner-city patois, sheer joy of life, and the incessant playing of that over KHJ-AM, the rock hits outlet in L.A., I started to like it until now it is a fond reminder of my carefree, beer-bust-attending misspent youth!



(3) Same for Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees, Like many, I despised Disco with a blind rage until, by sheer repetition and the Airplane! playing of a co-famous disco song of theirs in the Drambuie bar scene, I relented.



(4) What's New, Pussycat? by Tom Jones. Love the story about the two Gen X-ers who went into a diner and slammed a bag of quarters into the jukebox and lined up seemingly endless reps of this smarmy beaut. They punctuated it with one of Jones' other treacly hits only to return to the original song..

..until the manager came out of the kitchen and jerked the power cord from the jukebox -- to a standing "O" from the patrons.

Well, there's 10 minutes of your life you'll never get back!