Terrifying Tunes

I always have a song battering around inside my head. During every waking moment of every day, my subconscious will be merrily singing its own private tune, generally one that I've listened to or inadvertently heard in the preceding hours or days.

Usually, the tune in my head at any given moment will be one that I like, from my own vast library of music. I'll tend to repeat one riff or line over and over in my head, although this often branches out into whistling or singing.

In recent weeks, the songs that have been playing on my own mental jukebox have included Kate Nash's Foundations, the piano riff from The Beatles' Hey Bulldog and Thin Lizzy's Dancing In The Moonlight. All of these are perfectly fine, and I'm happy to have them on shuffle as I go about my daily business.

But for the past few days, I've woken up with a horrific medley of ABBA's Waterloo and Madonna's La Isla Bonita playing in my head. Nothing I can do can shift this combination from my mind. I've tried listening to some of my favourite catchy tunes in the car, or whistling something else to take my mind of the horrors of 70s disco and 80s pop.

And for a short time, these tactics work. But too often, the polished vapidity of Sweden's finest will come creeping up again, sledgehammering its way in between my silent renditions of Kings Of Leon and The Stone Roses.

I blame Live Earth - Madonna's "Romany Gypsy" rendition of La Isla Bonita with Gogol Bordello would have been enough to make me claw out my own ear drums, had I not been driving when it came on the radio. It was pure car crash radio (not in the real sense of the term - I didn't actually crash) - who in the world REALLY thought that what Madge's work really needed was a gypsy remix?

Anyway, I digress. How can I banish the horrors of my mind's inner gay bar forever, and replace them with good old-fashioned rock'n'roll? Help me, please.