I’ve a question. When you wake up with a song going around in your head – who chose the playlist?
I only ask because the assortment of songs which are going around in my head when I wake up is very peculiar. They are not, as you might expect, my favourite songs or the ones to which I listen most frequently. Instead there seems to be some sort of subconscious selection process at work.
Bond themes are quite frequent. This is because I am a Bloody Bloke and, in many ways, very similar to James Bond. And they’re always from early Roger Moore films. ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ by Lulu. ‘Live And Let Die’ by Paul McCartney and Wings. ‘Nobody Does It Better’ by Carly Simon.
What’s more irritating is when the playlist chooses a song which I know but of which my conscious mind does not approve, causing me to wake up feeling shameful and metaphorically soiled. Such as, oh,’My Heart Will Go On’ by Celine Dion, or ‘Sparrow’ by The Ramblers or even, oh God, ‘Tattva’ by Kula Shaker.
Maybe my brain is punishing me. Maybe it’s trying to induce a panic response because I’ve fallen asleep cutting off the blood supply to my arm. But that’s still no excuse for dumping the lumpen melodies of Coldplay and U2 into my cerebellum.
Once I woke up with a song going around in my head which I couldn’t identify. Maybe, I thought, I had come up with a brand new tune, like Paul McCartney dreaming up ‘Yesterday’. And then, after minutes of painstaking research, I found out what the melody was. ‘Grandma’s Party’ by Paul Nicholas. A song I hadn’t heard for 30 years, but once heard, never forgotten.
And here it is. Please, don’t have nightmares.
