May's Earworms Challenge

Challenge #5, I think?

Ok so I pledged last month to do one Daily Earworms Challenge each month, only to almost immediately drop the ball. By that I mean that I did in fact do a Challenge in May, but here it is June 1 and you’re just now hearing about it. May was so freaking busy I’m lucky my wits are still intact at all, and I don’t think that’s just a Kristen thing or even a Malcolm family thing, I think that’s an almost Universal thing. So anyway, I did a challenge and made the playlist, but never wrote anything about it. As it was two weeks ago, I might not remember much about how the individual songs took over my brain that day. I’ll do my best, I promise.

New to the Earworms Challenge? I’ll sum it up real quick. I have always gotten so many different songs stuck in my head on any given day, to the point that I have often wondered just how many I average, and what makes it happen. So I started this thing here where once a month I will go for an entire day documenting every single song that I get stuck in my head, make a Spotify playlist of those songs, and share it here with you, along with explanations for some of the tunes. If my memory serves me, this is Challenge #5, so I’ll link the post from last month here, and from there you can find links to all the others.

So on with this month’s challenge! I didn’t have quite as many songs this time, and honestly I don’t even remember why. I kinda think things got so busy that I just forgot I was doing it toward the end of the day, or else I was (gasp) so busy that there wasn’t room for more songs in my head. Matter of fact, I do recall that I was exhausted because baby Betsy was sick, and Ian and I were in the thick of writing a song about it (that song is actually out now, it’s called Crybaby, and I’ll be sharing a post about that writing process in the next couple of days). Looking at the playlist, I remember a lot more than I thought I would, so let’s get on with it.

Notes

The Cheat is Not Dead, by Strong Bad: If you’re not familiar with the internet cartoon Homestar Runner, this will make absolutely no sense to you whatsoever. I’m actually geeking out quite a bit at this very moment, cos I just checked the website and it is fully functional again. For awhile, a lot of the toons and features were unuseable cos nearly everything on the site used flash player, which is now defunct. Most of the toons are available on YouTube now, and that’s how I’ve shown them to my daughter Miranda for years. I’d heard rumors that the site had been revamped, but I hadn’t checked for myself until about two minutes ago. This website was my absolute favorite time-waster in college, and to this day I still consider its content to be some of the funniest stuff I’ve ever seen. I even have the soundtrack album Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits on vinyl. The Cheat is Not Dead got stuck in my head cos I was showing Miranda a compilation video of great moments from the site, and a line from this song was part of it, and my brain was immediately taken over.

Strong Bad: The Cheat, man. Where did we go wrong? Seems like just yesterday we were setting fire to Strong Sad’s underwears.

Strong Sad: That was yesterday!

Strong Bad: This one’s for you.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople), by They Might Be Giants: While I play and sing a lot of TMBG to Betsy, as I did and do with Miranda, Ian actually brought this one up. I had always figured that John and John were not the original writers, as this has always seemed like a well-known traditional tune, and Ian was telling me what he had read about how the song first came about. It was written by a Canadian group called The Four Lads in 1953. I’ve never actually listened to it (should probably get on that, though), and the version I and most everyone else is familiar with is this cover done by They Might Be Giants in 1990. To me, their album Flood is probably one of the most important albums of my life.

Godzilla, by Blue Oyster Cult: I had never heard this song before, and Ian sent me the following meme (that’s how we flirt), and I didn’t get it. So he explained it to me, and I listened to the song, and it’s quite catchy. (I’d only ever heard Don’t Fear the Reaper.)

Heat Above, by Greta Van Fleet: If you’ve never listened to this band, do it now. Do it! You’re welcome. They’ve got a modern-day Led Zeppelin vibe, and Josh Kiszka’s vocals are beyond incredible. This song is a perfect example.

I’ll Stand By You, by the Pretenders: I think this got stuck cos of sick Betsy—how awful she felt, and how as her mom, this is one of the no-matter-what parts of parenting. Actually, now that I’m listening to it in the present moment, the first line is what did it. “Oh, why you look so sad? Tears are in your eyes, come on and come to me now.” Betsy doesn’t really talk, so her cries are often a guessing game for me. Feels pretty helpless for both of us sometimes, and especially while she was sick.

You Get Me, by Michelle Branch: Not sure why I was singing it this particular day, but one line of this song has always stuck out to me, and it’s one of the principles I live my life by: “Who wants to be ordinary in a crazy, mixed-up world?” Certainly not me.

Everything, by Alanis Morissette: I was a teenage girl in the nineties (and one who definitely wanted to be more of a badass than she was allowed to be), so naturally I’ve always loved Alanis. This is probably my favorite of her songs. There’s something magical about finding someone who sees, loves, and accepts everything about you, and helps you do the same for yourself. Everyone deserves to have that, and I’m grateful that I do. I don’t remember why it was in my head, though.

Vindicated, by Dashboard Confessional: I don’t recall how it got stuck that day, but earlier this week frontman Chris Carraba shared on his Instagram that this song has just turned 20 years old (wuuuut?), and he talked about how he wrote the song while at the beach in Hawaii. Most remembered for being on the Spiderman 2 soundtrack, it’s one of my favorite Dashboard tunes, and that’s saying something.

Cry Baby Cry, by the Beatles: Ian and I were talking about the song we were writing, which we had already decided to name Crybaby. So I started singing this Beatles tune.

Honky Tonk Women, by the Rolling Stones: I’m not a Stones fan, but this one gets stuck in my head. My last post (I’ll include a link at the end) about our recent music festival has a video of my girls and me grooving along to this song being played by a local band, the Shetlands. I’d wager this got stuck because I was in the process of finishing up that post.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, by Elton John: This was on the radio in the car and stuck with me after. Probably one of my favorites of his, although I don’t know it very well.

me & ur ghost, by blackbear: This is one I only know cos Miranda plays it. I think she had played it in the car with me and it remained. I don’t normally like sad songs, especially breakup ones, but this one I do like. It’s relateable and quite catchy.

Figure Eight, by They Might Be Giants: This is off their Here Come the 123s album, which if you get it on cd, also comes with a dvd of the John & John puppet show and all the music videos. When Miranda was little and I discovered that my beloved TMBG was doing children’s songs, I just about flipped out. I would show her all the videos on YouTube, and she loved them. She still remembers and loves them now that it’s Betsy’s turn.

The Maybe Man, by AJR: Fitting that this song was on the list, being the first song on their album by the same name, given that 2085, which is the final song on the album, had taken over my brain earlier in the day. Funny how I had the last song stuck well before the first. I think this one happened just cos I was in Miranda’s room for something, and she had it playing. I actually wrote a review on this album earlier, which you can find here, because I absolutely love the entire thing. It flows together beautifully, with this title track perfectly setting you up for the rest of the songs, both musically and thematically, and then 2085 ties everything together and closes it out flawlessly. It’s magical.

Well that’s it for my Earworms Challenge for May 2024! When are YOU going to do the challenge? Be sure to come here and comment with your playlist or tag me in your own post about it. I can’t wait to read about and listen to what gets stuck in your head! Be sure to check out some of my other stuff, like the Upside Downs (my own Substack about baby Betsy), and also my YouTube channel with daily posts about both Betsy and my music. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and/or upgrade! Thank you for reading.

And as promised, here’s the link to my previous post about Camp & Jam, a local music festival my family went to at the end of April.