The Garden of Earworms

[rsc]

I am pretty much immune to earworms derived from pop music, and most show tunes. But my brain is crammed with lots of all-too-well-remembered music, including a fair amount of opera and a whole lot of Gilbert and Sullivan, and it insists on picking up scraps of these things when it hears or thinks of certain words. Some of the results of this habit are too convoluted and obscure to be worth describing, so I'll content myself with an observation that lcohen, at least, is bound to appreciate.

These days it seems that working in the yard inevitably brings on earworms from Ruddigore. Pulling out the oak seedlings that are showing up in a lot of beds this year triggers Hannah's second-act song ("There grew a little flower 'neath a great oak tree"), whereas fighting off the wild roses that are just about everywhere results in Margaret's from the first act ("...the wanton roses,/Who, uprising from their beds,/hold on high their shameless heads").

Just thought I'd share (isn't that what earworms are for?).

Comments

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

I don't recognize any of those, but I bet my sisters and my cousins and my aunts would.

My sisters and my cousins and my sisters and my cousins and my aunts.

[jss]

But you're not an Englishman.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

But you're not an Englishman

but *I* am. And I have sisters -- but only two, i don't reckon them up by dozens.

[jss]

But do you reckon up your cousins by the dozens?

(Why are we riffing on Pinnafore when this started about Ruddigore?)

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

because we can plant earworms of ANY G&S variety in the fertile soil that is Robert's memory bank

(only six cousins, so 0.5 isn't really "reckoning up by dozens" either)

Chris
trying to lend an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative

[jss]

True enough. (And will you refrain from putting in your oar?)

In college, I and my friends were indeed mad: We sang choruses in public.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

And will you refrain from putting in your oar

well, what would you like me to put in? and where?

if it's causing distress, use more lube.

-- have you noticed how well pandas and badgers look together? as was proved by Ascot Gavotte, you can't go wrong in basic black-and-white