Stuck in my head

This is not a chain note, so please don't reproduce it - unless of course you suffer from the same syndrome that I do, in which case I am so sorry. By "syndrome" I mean that regardless of what I'm doing, watching, listening to, reading, etc. - there is music playing in my head that I just can't turn off, ever. When I had to study for tests in high school and college people wondered why I used to play music on the radio or tape/CD or turn the TV on to something I wasn't watching - it was to drown out the music playing in my head so I could concentrate on what I was reading, otherwise it would drive me completely insane with distraction. Sometimes the music is something I'm writing, which is good; sometimes it's music I like, which is okay; sometimes it's just plain awful and inexplicable. But it's always there.

I have heard theories that the song you hear in your mind at times is your subconscious' way of commenting on your surroundings or the situation in which you find yourself. Like you're boiling water and suddenly realize that "Too Hot" by Kool and the Gang has been bubbling in the back of your mind. These theories are, pun fully intended, full of hot water. I can most times find absolutely no connection between what I hear in my head and what's going on with me or around me, so fooey on that concept. This is just my brain....on infinite shuffle.

To give you an idea of what it's like, here's what I did today :

- got up
- ate breakfast
- took a shower
- got dressed
- said goodbye to Ness and left the house
- drove to the train station listening to Howard Stern
- waited for the train which was late
- got on the train and watched the rest of "Joe Dirt" that was left over from the last time and the beginning of "Mystery, Alaska"
- chatted over IM with Ness about how crappy it was that the train was 30-40 minutes late
- turned off the laptop, fired up the iPod which had its own random ideas on what to play (including a Phrenik song)
- walked up Broadway in Oakland, got a bagel, went to my desk in the office and started to work

So that's been the past 7 hours of my day so far, an ordinary Tuesday. Here's what randomly came up in my head and would not go away :

- "Photograph" - Def Leppard
- "Pour some sugar on me" - Def Leppard (apparently it's a Two-for-Tuesday)
- the middle section of a song called "Earthquakes" that I'm writing
- a song called "Step by Step" I wrote a hundred years ago which never saw the light of day and from which "Earthquakes" was partially cannibalized
- the chorus for "What You Wanted" which I'm also writing
- "Push" - The Cure
- "New Low" - MC Rut
- "Rumors of my Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated" - Rise Against
- "When I'm with You" - Sheriff (see I told you some of it was awful)
- "Anyway you Want It" - Journey
- "Think I'm in Love" - Eddie Money (ok that one I heard in the Joe Dirt soundtrack)
- "A Milli" - Lil Wayne (I hate this song)
- "I'm on a Boat" - Lonely Island

Anyway, that's what I can remember off the top of my head. And these are not just snippets of songs, they're ENTIRE SONGS that play over and over until something else knocks them out.

I have come to the conclusion that I would make a terrible transcendental meditationist.