Ear worms...love em or hate em they have a way of making a day. For shits and giggles I have been known to do some, if not all, of the following for my own amusement:
Calling up a friend when an ABBA song came on and holding the phone to the speaker. Whether she answered or her machine picked up, she was getting Dancing Queen right in the ear.
Calling former employees of mine and singing a little ditty or worse a commercial jingle into their ear...mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini wheat!!!
And of course....singing the chorus to say, 867-5309 walking through the kitchen...yeah Jenny!!!
I had one attack me today, thankfully it was a good one. John Lennon singing "I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round" Maybe here is a time for a what if? What if that turd didn't shoot John that fateful day in New York? What magic would have been created? What would he be saying about our world today? What ifs indeed. He was cut down a few weeks after Double Fantasy's release. I remember when I heard the news that awful Tuesday morning, on a tinny radio playing in the background as I got ready for school. I was only 12 or 13 at the time and hadn't really developed my "music" yet, but I did like The Beatles and was aware enough to know the impact this would have. The station played Imagine followed by Just like Starting Over...and those ringing bells in the beginning always transport me back to that moment. Oddly enough this morning on the radio at work, Casey Kassem's countdown was doing the number one songs from that year and that was number one.
Letting my mind wander over lyrics and songs and I drifted over to Waiting on a Friend by the Rolling Stones. I always loved the feel of that song...a lazy afternoon fiddling with some riffs, surrounded by people you love and respect, where the music is what matters.
This leads me into my tattoo....the big reveal is that I used the Hip's lyric "no dress rehearsal, this is our life" with a writing quill thrown in. If you know me, you know that this was perfect for me..it all clicked together and I'm very happy with it. The significance is multi levelled for me. The sentiment is obvious....but there is more. For a bit more you can check this post from last summer No Dress Rehearsal Throw in that I turned 49 the other day and I have a looking forward, backward and all around me kind of day.
And what is the point of all this rambling? Ear worms and birthdays? Please tell me you have a point right? Well, let's see if I can tie this all up. I like the word banality, it sounds like it should mean something other than what it does. I'm not entirely sure why, but there you have it..from my mind to this page. Banality is essentially uninteresting or dull, unimaginative and even boring. I can't imagine a day of banal thoughts will ever generate greatness...no great story or work of art has been created in a fit of banality, at least I'd like to think. Matters of opinion and taste aside, I think great art comes from stepping outside that humdrum, taking the chance and letting go of fear, even for a minute.
But I don't want to dismiss banality as a bad thing. I don't think there is anything wrong with simply being. Living life day to day. Watching the world go by or simply waiting for a friend is good enough...hell, I like spending some of my time in that way. This banality of life, as it were, can be soul nourishing in it's own way...as not all of us can be Hemingway or DaVinci. And here, my friends, is my ear worming point...on those occasions when we escape the bonds of banality we open ourselves up to allow for the possibility of inspiration. Maybe we can move a person to tears, shed light in a dark corner or simply get someone to look at something they have seen a million times, a little differently. To see beauty in chaos. To see beauty.
In that moment we should realize that we are all in this together. This big and little blue dot we inhabit is all we have. The idea of "umbutu", I am because we are...kindness, compassion, humanity...are we our brothers keeper? We truly are in this together and the sooner we get that the better off we will become. Again and again, it won't be easy but all one has to do is open their eyes to what is happening in the world to see that the hard path is the right one. Succumbing to banal belligerence is giving tacit approval to the fear and hate....and in that there is no beauty.
I'm pretty sure I have proven that my brain works funny..ear worms to banality to channelling Drumph...you just never know how I'm bringing this together. But in the end, the world can be a scary place these days with all the fear mongering and hate being thrown around like so many marbles. It may help to remember Gandhi's words:
"In a gentle way, you can shake the world."
Or the Beatles:
"And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make."
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