Day 33. A song that you can’t even think of without it getting stuck in your head

“Lovin’ You” – Minnie Riperton

Earworms.We all get them. Songs that you hear and they get stuck in your head, no matter what you try to do. And more often than not, it’s a song you don’t even like.

Such is the case here. I find this to be a very good example of a song from the 70s. I could stop there, but that’s not the whole thought. This is: I find this to be a very good example of a song from the 70s that is simply terrible. Just awful.

And yet, all it takes is a few notes to get it stuck in my head. And the worst part is, it’s not even the whole song that gets stuck there. It’s just this part:

La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la laa
Laa laaa la laaa la la.

If you’re good, and you happen to not be familiar with the song by name or artist, you might be able to place the song just from that. But probably not. That’s like trying to figure out a song by simply tapping out the notes. Possible but unlikely. So I suggest you click on the play button to the right. You’ll know what I mean. (It’s the last part of the sample.)

I should probably say I’m sorry for planting that in your head. But I’m not. Sorry that is. The fact is that this &$@!ing song has been stuck in my head for days now in preparation for this post. So the sooner I can pass it on to someone else and get it the hell out of my head, the better.

You see, that’s the other part of the earworm phenomenon: you have to pass it to someone else to truly get it out of your head.

And this one is evil. All it takes is for Laura to sing “La la la la la” and it’s over. Five notes. Hours of torture. This is now your fate.

So, now that I’ve been mean and planted this insidious beast on you, I can also pass along some interesting trivia about the song. Because it seems to have a little more than the average.

• Minnie Riperton was the mother of Maya Rudolph (of SNL, Bridesmaids, that awful show with Christina Applegate and Gob Bluth).
• Maya Rudolph was in the studio when this song was recorded. (The amount of therapy she had to undergo afterward is unknown.)
• The song went to #1 in 1975 (probably only because it was stuck in everyone else’s heads, too; an earworm is a powerful force). It was the 400th #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
• According to Wikipedia, “Lovin’ You” was among the first several songs to top the U.S. pop chart without the help of a percussion instrument. Prior examples of percussionless #1s include “Time In A Bottle” by Jim Croce (maybe I should have used that song yesterday) and (ha!) “Yesterday” by The Beatles.

On a sad and serious note, Minnie Riperton died in 1979 (at only 31 years old) of breast cancer, mostly because she didn’t get diagnosed until it had metastasized. Once diagnosed, she was given only about six months to live. It’s hard to believe in this day and age, but in the 70s, talk of breast cancer was still sort of taboo, and she was one of the first celebrities to publicly talk about her diagnosis. Now football players wear pink to continue to raise awareness. How far we’ve come (in a very good direction). I don’t joke about cancer. I do crazy things to help fight cancer instead. Donations are still open. Consider donating. The proceeds go to Dana Farber.

Or else I’ll get another song stuck in your head.