Wednesday, 3/24

 I wonder if I've finally gone over the edge?

I wouldn't be the first person to do that in the past year, and I'm sure I wouldn't be the last. But here we are, fifteen months into 2020 and with me beginning my 53^rd week of working alone. Perhaps, then, it's not really a surprise that I spent a good chunk of yesterday listening to the same song over and over.

According to my iTunes program, I, in fact, listened to it 54 times in a row.

In my defense, Gloria Gaynor's “Never Can Say Goodbye” is a short song, so listening to it 54 times only took up, uhm, two and a half hours of my life. In my defense, I have liked the song since I was a kid. And in my defense, at least I wasn't listening to Mayer Hawthorne's new album, like I have been every day since January.

So I do have all that going for me.

I have NO idea why I listened to a 70s disco song 54 times in a row yesterday. For some reason, it popped into my head, so I decided to listen to it once. And I don't if it was just dumb luck, a certain brain-dead attitude on my part, or Covid fever, but after I listened to it the first time I stuck it on repeat and then proceeded to listen to it 53 more times.

Yes, I need help. What's your point?

I mean, I THINK I know why I listened to it 54 times in a row. Meco Monardo, the guy who produced the song (and would later go on to have a number one song himself with the disco version of the “Star Wars” theme a few years later) whipped up a gloriously over-the-top string and horn arrangement to “Never Can Say Goodbye”, and I honestly think that's what got to me. There's just something about the spectacle of the music that harkens back to days when we could dance & celebrate and just enjoy whatever life threw your way.

You know...stuff you can't necessarily do today.

But the reason I listened to it that many times is neither here nor there. I listened to the song 54 times in a row yesterday, and I have no excuse for that other than, you know, perhaps having gone over the edge.

So thanks, 2020 (and the three month extension of it we're currently in). I owe you one.

(jim@wmqt.com)

(ps—wanna see if YOU can listen to it 54 times in a row??)