No matter where we are these days if
Top 40 music is playing, my boys seem to know a majority of the lyrics to the
songs. The list of artists seems endless, Alessia Cara; Charlie Pugh;
Gavin (DeGraw for those not in the know) and I never thought I would
become familiar with all of their names,
let alone their songs. But some of my favorite moments these days are
traveling in a car and looking in the rear-view mirror and seeing and hearing
the boys singing along. Most recently, this remind me of the scene from
“Almost Famous” in which the
band was singing Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”, but of course minus the groupies.
Why do we remember song lyrics so
easily? According to Adam Sinicki of HealthGuidance.org, "Clearly
our brains are somehow wired to be especially good at remembering music lyrics.
. .most of us have the lyrics to hundreds if not thousands of songs stored in
our brains. . .” I can certainly remember Ms. Johnson's 2nd grade class
and a few of us monopolizing the cassette player so that we could listen to
"Combat Rock" over and over again as we desperately tried to
memorize the lyrics to "Rock the Casbah". At the time, my
fascination with song probably had to do with the repetitive chorus:
"Sharif don't like it / Rock the Casbah, rock the Casbah / Sharif don't
like it / Rock the Casbah, Rock the Casbah". I did not know that a
Sharif was a Muslim religious leader and that a Casbah is an African Market,
but I did know at 7 years old that I wanted to rock.
I believe one of the reasons that I
recall lyrics is due to associating the lyrics with something going in my life.
These days I spend some of my downtime running in Frick Park (with
multiple guys named Matt) and so many of our discussions can set off lyrics
that are in my head. We could be talking about anything from parenting to
visiting with old friends and almost immediately the following songs enter my
head: Ben Folds Five’s ‘Philosophy’: “Go ahead you laugh all you want / I
got my philosophy”) or the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ ‘Toxic Toast’: “Queensbury
Number Eight / Hell Hotel punk rock estate. / Way way back in the day. / One
hundred years it seems that way.” And now there is Ed Sheeran’s ‘Castle
on the Hill’: “We found weekend jobs, when we got paid / We'd buy cheap spirits
and drink them straight”.
I do not believe that I would ever
volunteer to sing these songs in public (when I have sang karaoke, it was
shotgun style), but it does not change the fact that song lyrics play a large
role in my everyday thoughts. And it is somewhat comforting to now see
the same thing start happening with my boys.
Thanks for reading.
