My cell phone split in half this week. It was strange to see what a Pixel 6 looked like with the screen detached from it. It still worked but the battery was getting so hot that it burned off all the glue, which means I was basically carrying a firebomb in my pocket, so I shelved it. This means that I had to grab my old Motorola 5G Ace that I keep for times like these. Unfortunately, it no longer is supported by the Xfinity Mobile Network, meaning, no phone. It’s times like these when I realize how dependent I am on my cell phone for my musical needs, and how it is vital for getting songs out of my head. I’m impressionable after all and with the new algorithms that the streaming companies use to target ads at me, I can tell you it picks a lot of tunes that get stuck in your head and suck at the same time.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of songs that get used constantly in commercials that are sometimes a welcome change to your mood. “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls (Martha Wash and the late great Izora Armstead) will never get old. Those ladies could belt, and I am not exactly afraid of singing along to a song that is considered a gay anthem. With that said, the number of times you whistle it at work will make people take notice and wonder how you are doing these days. My stupid phone has no service, and the company network doesn’t allow a cell phone that old to hook onto the network because of security features. Wonderful. My computer can get YouTube, and nothing else to stream any form of music to get this song out of my head.
First up we used a highly addictive song that at least is obscure to all of Gen Zs and most of the Millennials that I am inundated with daily, Major Tom (Coming Home) by Peter Schilling. I say most of the Millennials because there is still that subset that heard the song in Umbrella Academy. Gen Z aren’t exactly big Gerard Way fans, so they never make it that far into the show. They all seem to be up on the whole Sonic the Hedgehog Universe though as most of them went nuts when they heard me whistling “The Warrior” by Scandal. I lost any cool points I got on that one when I told them how hot Patty Smyth was in the day. She was New York gorgeous anyway.
With the less offensive Major Tom in my head, I still had the problem of it being a highly addictive form of Musical Methadone to contend with. Advantages aside, the bright note is I have learned to whistle songs instead of singing them while I am at work. A wonderful rendition of the James song “Laid” got me sent to HR eighteen years ago, and I have since learned the art of whistling. It was self-preservation considering that the 80s and 90s music was a simpler time when music was mostly about sex, womanizing or handling a man. Traditional teenage stuff, before the world became a never-ending opportunity to people herd. The music I liked morphed into a never-ending stream of virtue signaling. Punk-ish bands crying about ‘the man” came on the scene, and that started becoming more of the things you could get away with singing if HR got involved.
Like most generations before me I lived long enough to assess who was right and who was lying. According to my second-grade teacher the rainforest disappeared 28 years ago, type of stuff applies to music as well. “It’s Raining Men” was a fun song that the girls at Happy Wheels loved skating to. It was a huge dance hit that was rated in the top 100 dance songs of all times. That disappeared 15 years ago when a Facebook Group decided it was a gay anthem. Who cares? It’s like the meme I saw some X engagement farmer sent out of Whitney Houston as a little girl, wondering if anyone could recognize her. I was the jerk that replied with a picture of her a few weeks before she died of a drug overdose, wondering of people recognized that woman. She was a once in a lifetime talent too, that burned bright and faded away.
Before the day was over, I had managed to through Weather Girls, Peter Schilling, Gotye, Within Temptation, Semblant, Van Halen, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Dead or Alive (who knows maybe I am gay), and several others that have escaped me as I am writing this a couple of days later. Oh yeah, escape reminds me that “Don’t Stop Believing” was in there somewhere, but as I walked out of work on Friday, “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls was back in my head, and it was the audiobook I listened to on my home that got rid of it. Speaking of my newfound gayness, there were some seriously epic things that happened in that audiobook that got me teary eyed too. I better go start that blog now that it hopped into my head.
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