After complaining about lacking my vinyl music on my computer to include in the Friday Random 10, I've decided to instead pick random songs out of my head. This doesn't mean they are necessarily songs near and dear to my heart. This means that I'm attempting to pluck songs that float to the surface for the list with minimal conscious editing.

1. Strange Fruit, Nina Simone
2. What's So Funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding, Elvis Costello
3. Crimson and Clover, Tommy James
4. Urban Desire, Genya Ravan
5. Out Come the Freaks, Was (Not Was)
6. Oh, Bondage Up Yours!, X-Ray Specs
7. Cuts You Up, Peter Murphy
8. Everybody's in Showbiz, The Kinks
9. Putting out Fire (with Gasoline), David Bowie
10. Birth, School, Work, Death; The Godfathers

OK, this is obviously not completely successfully random mind sample since I actually like all of these songs. I mean, where are all the damned top-40 AM bubblegum songs lodged in my brain like pesky bits of food between teeth? You know the ones I mean; the songs you would never admit to anyone that you ever listened to, much less that they still pop up unbidden and unwanted to the forefront of your mind. They replay on endless loop for hours, despite your best efforts to displace them with something tolerable. And the terrible thing: if someone else knows the song, you can infect them with it by humming or singing a few bars of it. Even while you despise them, they have hellish hooks. Or sheer repetition has carved deep pathways in your synapses.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, count yourself as blessed amongst modern mortals. There are some things it's best to not know. When your pop music past starts devouring your brain...

Bonus Song: Don't Shake Me Lucifer, Roky Erickson and the Aliens.

Labels: songs