sovay | Maybe it was that other song you sang

I don't like the term "earworm," but I agree that there needs to be a compound noun or at least a less unwieldy phrase for music stuck in one's head, otherwise it is very difficult to construct an elegant sentence about having four or five of them switch on and off in various combinations throughout the day. I run a near-constant internal soundtrack and one of the things my brain is wired for is allusion, so I'm not surprised that seeing a line quoted on my friendlist left me humming "You're the Top," or that my father's after-dinner search for his nuclear blast kill calculator stuck me (again) with "Werner von Braun," but none of that explains why I woke up with "Yesterday Is Here" and did a lot of my cooking to the persistent alternation of "Read About Love" and "The Shame of Going Back." There was a cameo appearance by "Midnight Feast" somewhere around the butternut squash biscuits, but it didn't last. Oh, yes, and "Ten Happy Fingers." All one verse of it. That can't have been a good sign.¹ Then again, I'm not sure I know any Thanksgiving songs beyond Brecht and Weill's astringent and unworshiping "Großer Dankchoral," so what else should have been in my head for the holiday? It was good; my brother and his wife came for dinner, Eric and Bob and Ron for dessert; there were no kitchen fires or accidental severance of digits, although there was a tricky moment with the Zwiebelkuchen and I am not repeating that recipe for braised greens. Some of the time I remembered to take photographs. I should have kept a list of the music.

1. I have just discovered there is a techno piece of the same name. It remixes dialogue from The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. It is also catchy. I'm doomed.

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Hardly elegant, but at least it alliterates? (The Gawain-poet rolls over in his grave.)

Hmm. I will contemplate. It's a good kenning.

Also, "astringent and unworshiping" may be the awesomest characteristics ascribed to a song ever.

Heh. Thank you. It's from the Berliner Requiem (1928) and I don't know if I would recommend it to cheer up to, but I tend to love anything they wrote:

Lobet die Nacht und die Finsternis, die euch umfangen!
Kommet zuhauf
Schaut in den Himmel hinauf:
Schon ist der Tag euch vergangen.

Lobet von Herzen das schlechte Gedächtnis des Himmels!
Und daß er nicht
Weiß euren Nam' noch Gesicht
Niemand weiß, daß ihr noch da seid.

Lobet das Gras und die Tiere, die neben euch leben und sterben!
Sehet, wie ihr
Lebet das Gras und das Tier
Und es muß auch mit euch sterben.

Lobet die Kälte, die Finsternis und das Verderben!
Schauet hinan:
Es kommet nicht auf euch an
Und ihr könnt unbesorgt sterben.

or:

Praise the night and the darkness that surround you
Come together
Look up to heaven
Already for you the day is gone

Praise from your hearts the poor memory of heaven
And that it does not
Know your name nor your face
No one knows that you still exist

Praise the grass and the beasts that live and die beside you
See, like you
Lives the grass and the beast
And with you it too must die

Praise the cold, the dark, and the decay
Look up
It's not dependent on you
And you can die unworried

—"Großer Dankchoral (Great Hymn of Thanksgiving"

(There is a fifth verse in Brecht's poem, but if it was set as part of the Requiem, it's not in the recording I own.)

Maybe it was that other song you sang

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