What I Heard On Wednesday

I decided, as an experiment, to keep track of every bit of music I heard yesterday. Early in the day, I battled earworms, as thinking consciously about incidental music causes all sorts of songs to pop into ones head and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. Later in the day, it became too difficult to track, as I turned on the TV and channel surfed. So, to the best of my ability, here's what I heard on Wednesday:

8:30am - The oldest computer music in the world - My Country Tis Of Thee, Baa Baa Black Sheep and In The Mood - courtesy of the BBC.

9:00am - Read a news story about Nintendo wall decals - Super Mario Brothers theme in my head.

10:00am - The Association's Never My Love repeating in my head, and I don't know why.

10:17am - Now it's a Talking Heads song; I can't think of the title.

10:30am - Prepping iPod to go to the gym, and now I have Metallica's Fight Fire With Fire in my head. Note, I haven't actually heard any of these songs; they're all in my head!

10:33am - Annie's Me Plus One - the earworm is sufficient that I actually play the song from my iTunes library while syncing my iPod.

10:40am - Briefly heard a snippet of a pop song upon entering the gym but quickly put on headphones. The gym plays terrible, shrieking, contemporary pop and R&B during the day.

10:41am - The iPod gym mix on shuffle. Selections from Annie, The Waitresses, Beck, Lily Allen, Martha Wainwright, The Kinks, Joan Jett, Tears For Fears, Madonna, Del Shannon, and, again, The Kinks.

11:35am - Duane Reade - treacly pop song about "surviving."

11:40am - Hardware Store - Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run.

11:45am - Natural Land - Lite FM playing either Bonnie Raitt or Alannah Myles or their lovechild.

12:40pm - Walking to the Archive over the Manhattan Bridge, I heard a few car radios playing bassy hip hop or R&B and one playing some Latin song with a melody close enough to Tie A Yellow Ribbon (Round The Old Oak Tree) that I have the Atons version in my head. I put in earplugs for the duration of the walk and think how nice it would be if the city were 25dB quieter at times.

2:20pm - My coworker plays a quick YouTube clip of an Irish pipe player and navigates to a myspace page for an NYU Irish band.

2:30 - 6:00pm - I'm sure I heard something, as NPR was playing in the other room, but I can't recall any specific musical moments.

7:00pm - While cooking dinner, I play two Soundcheck podcasts and hear a lot of stuff, including Death Cab For Cutie, the guy from Spoon, and Feist used as interstitial music.

8:00pm - While eating, my husband and I discuss the copyright of Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land. He tells me about a case involving that satirical cartoon of George W. Bush and John Kerry from the 2004 election. Apparently they settled out of court, leaving no precedent.

9:30pm - The TV comes on.... it's a blur. I watched some of Mythbusters and the Top Chef reunion show. The only specific song I can remember hearing is Of Montreal's Let's Go Outback Tonight. I wonder whether they wrote it with selling steaks in mind.

11:30pm - My husband puts on Vashti Bunyan's Lookaftering. I'm tired and I just want to read about Thomas Keller and The French Laundry. I ask if I can turn it off.