Some people hear voices in their heads. I know I do, but in my case the voices aren’t evil ones telling me to kill my father or my Aunt Megan (I don’t even have an Aunt Megan). Nonetheless, I hear the voices quite clearly. Sort of. I say sort of because what I hear isn’t a “voice” per se but a specific song. The songs are random: sometimes current, sometimes old, usually something from my childhood. (The other day it was “Baby, don’t get hooked on me,” sung by Mac Davis). No matter the genre, though, I won’t be free of the blasted thing until I listen to it. So…the song appears in my head, then off I go to listen to it, compliments of Youtube because, let’s be honest, I don’t have Mac’s “Baby don’t get hooked on me” on my Ipod play list. I don’t even have it in my Itunes library.
In case you were wondering, the sticky songs don’t happen every day, thank goodness. I can go weeks without it happening. It’s just whenever they feel like appearing for some reason. (I don’t know their reason). Yesterday’s stuck-in-my-head Dolly Parton song came out of nowhere, like they all do. After I went to YouTube to listen to it, something interrupted me (something or someone, cough, cough). I stopped what I was doing to look at whatever my husband wanted me to look at. Then my life continued without my getting to listen, so it took a long, long time for the song to fade out of my brain. When the song stuck-in-my-head thing happens, I can still go about my usual activities, but it is more obnoxious than when I can just listen to it and move on. It’s as if listening to it gives the song (and me) some kind of peace, like an angry ghost who just needed to be heard. Sigh. When Mac Davis and I had our relationship a few days back, I listened to the song, knew that he was going to break the heart of the girl in question…and then I went down the rabbit hole of the internet. (See, I told you that I can just go on about my day!). I made the mistake of asking the magic internet faeries “where is Mac Davis now?” (Nowhere in particular). Then I looked at some current pictures of Mr. Davis, which was a grave error. It was really depressing because it made me feel old. He looked old. I decided to look at some of his older pictures instead (when he was younger), and the cover of some of his albums. Dear old (young) Mac looked really cute in his denim shirt. No wonder she got hooked!
Yesterday’s song appearing in my head out of nowhere was “Me and Little Andy,” by the incomparable Dolly Parton. Unlike “Baby don’t get hooked on me,” “Me and Little Andy” isn’t a terrible song, just a sad one. In the song, a little girl appears at the house of the woman singing the song (Dolly Parton). The little girl asks, not for a meal, but if Dolly has any gingerbread. “Ain’t you got no gingerbread, ain’t you got no candy? Ain’t you got an extra bed for me and little Andy?” (Little Andy is the dog that’s with her). I’m guessing the dog is not a “yap yap” dog or Dolly might want to turn her away. Please see my other entry cleverly titled “Yap Yap Dogs.” If it were a yap yap, and if the little girl were at my house instead of Dolly’s asking for candy and a bed, she’d be shit out of luck. As we’ve established elsewhere, I despise that kind of dog. However, it’s not my dog, and it’s not my song, so let’s press on, shall we?
“Ain’t you got no gingerbread? Ain’t you got no candy?”
Dolly Parton
Dolly may not have any gingerbread–it doesn’t say–but she does let the girl spend the night (and her little dog, too, yap yap or otherwise). Whether or not Dolly calls CPS (child protective services) is unknown, but since she lets the little girl spend the night in her home it seems unlikely. Dolly is no pedophile (we hope), but this song will end badly. Sadly. (Spoiler alert). During the night the little girl dies, and so does the dog, since “that night as they slept the angels took them both to heaven.” Fuck.
What people might not know about Dolly Parton is that she is one of the richest women in the music industry with a net worth of $600 million. If it were the actual Dolly’s house (not just the character’s) in “Me and Little Andy,” I would bet that not only does Dolly have an extra bed, she probably has many more than one. I am sure she has plenty of candy and gingerbread, too, just in case people come to visit. On the other hand, do people even like gingerbread? Who? (Besides the little dead girl from the song, I mean). It’s fine with me if you like ginger bread–not that you need my approval of your cookie choices– but I honestly don’t know many people who do like ginger bread cookies. Is there a difference between ginger bread cookies and ginger snaps? I guess so, or else it is is a silly question. Plus, I think I know the answer. Ginger snaps are way too crispy for my taste, and now that I think about ginger cookies (not something I do on a regular basis, or ever before today), I think ginger snaps are much too hard. Even a soft ginger cookie (Trader Joe’s makes a nice one) is simply not worth the calories compared to something actually worth eating like, say, a chocolate chip cookie, or Girl Scout cookies such as Thin Mints –or even Snickerdoodles. My entire life I’ve been surprised that people can bring themselves to eat cookies made out of Girl Scouts. Not only does that that sound disgusting, it’s probably illegal. (Girl Scout cookies, get it? Ha ha). No matter, back to Dolly we go.
Dolly, as we know, is a rock star. Well, not just a rock star, but a country music rock star. What a lot of people might not know about Dolly is that not only is she rich, she is quite possibly one of the best songwriters ever. She wrote, “9 to 5,” ”Jolene,” and the Whitney Houston hit “I will always love you.” I wanted to say that she wrote “Hard Candy Christmas” from “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” but she didn’t. You’ll have to content yourself with the knowledge that she did, in fact, write some other music for it, which is just charming, don’t you think? Unless you don’t like Texas. Or whorehouses.
