la la la LAH la la
la la la LAH la la
la la dee dee la la
la la la LAH la la

la la, la la

I am currently plagued by an old song recorded by John Charles Thomas that goes:

THE GREEN-EYED DRAGON
by
Greatrex (Rex) Newman



Once upon a time lived a Fair Princess
Most beautiful and charming;
Her Father, the King, was a wicked old thing,
With manners most alarming.
And always on the front door mat,
A most ferocious Dragon sat,
It made such an awful shrieking noise
So all you little girls and boys...
Beware, take care,
Of the Green-eyed dragon with the 13 tails,
He'll feed,
With greed
On little boys, puppy dogs and big fat snails.
Then off to his lair each child he'll drag,
And each of his 13 tails he'll wag
Beware,
Take care
And creep off on tip toes.
And hurry up the stairs,
And say your prayers,
And duck your heads, your pretty curly heads,
Beneath the clothes, the clothes, the clothes.

That Dragon he lived for years and years,
But he never grew much thinner.
For lunch, he'd try a Policeman pie,
Or a roast M.P. for dinner;
One brave man went 'round with an axe
And tried to collect his income tax
The Dragon he smiled with fiendish glee,
And sadly murmured "R.I.P."...
Beware, take care,
Of the Green-eyed dragon with the 13 tails,
He'll feed,
With greed
On little boys, puppy dogs and big fat snails.
Then off to his lair each child he'll drag,
And each of his 13 tails he'll wag
Beware,
Take care
And creep off on tip toes.
And hurry up the stairs,
And say your prayers,
And duck your heads, your pretty curly heads,
Beneath the clothes, the clothes, the clothes.

That Dragon went down to the kitchen one day
Where the Fair Princess was baking;
He ate, by mistake, some rich plum cake
Which the Fair Princess was making,
That homemade cake, he could not digest,
He moaned and he groaned, and at last went west -
And now his ghost, with bloodshot eyes
At midnight clanks his chains and cries...
Beware, take care,
Of the Green-eyed dragon with the 13 tails,
He'll feed,
With greed
On little boys, puppy dogs and big fat snails.
Then off to his lair each child he'll drag,
And each of his 13 tails he'll wag
Beware,
Take care
And creep off on tip toes.
And hurry up the stairs,
And say your prayers,
And duck your heads, your pretty curly heads,
Beneath the clothes, the clothes, the clothes.
AAAAGH!!!!!

[www.youtube.com]

One song that I never mind having lodged in my head is Iz's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". But is it still earworm then?

that is my favourite version. The late, lamented Iz

I've had 'requiem for a tower' version Lux Aeterna in my head for days. I don't mind too much though, as everything is EPIC!

---

Part time Quantum Elephant hollower

Great, now I've got a bit of FAITH NO MORE, complete with the gasping fish from the video...

Heaven, I'm in heaven,
and the ........

If the tune is of quality does it qualify as an earworm?

The fact that one recalls some music with pleasure while shuddering when recalling other music should make a difference in defining the music in question.

Answers in a philosophical format, please.

Dunno what philosoff, philoosifick, uh, whatever-that-was format is. Please pardon.

Someone asked me what a weed is, once. I blinked. It seems obvious, but it took me a minute to answer. I finally came up with "a weed is something that is growing where you don't want it to." A beautiful rose growing in the middle of your wheat field would be a weed. The correlation would be that an earworm is something that is playing or humming or singing or whatevering when/where you don't want it to. (Specifically in your head.)

I really love "The Wedding Dance" song (look it up on UTube if you don't know what I mean), but if I listen to it once, it's there all day. Over and over. After a while I am sick of it, even though it's a wonderful video and a neat song. I will listen to it again, paying the "price" of it being stuck in my head for the rest of the day, but I don't listen to it every day. It is quite useful as a replacement earworm, so if I get something stuck that I really don't like, I can listen to the Wedding Dance song and at least be annoyed by something I like.

They're ALL annoying when you're trying to sleep, just saying...

Strangely I have had the Columbo end theme stuck in my head, but have now displaced it with 'Zulu'.

'My aunt Fanny had a haberdashery
but now she lives in Burton on Trent....'

To the tune of 'Ballet Egyptian'

I have been trying to replace it with 'Ode to Joy' but she sent it off to the debt collectors and now I'm stuck.

Ich wünsch mir 'ne kleine Miezekatze
für mein Wochenendhaus
der schenk ich eine Luftmatraze und eine Spielzeugmaus
Ihr singt dauernd solche Liebeslieder vorne und hinten mit Schmalz
Ach die häng'n mir immer wieder so aus'm Hals

Wum, drawn and sung by Vicco von Bülow aka Loriot who died yesterday.

Having this ditty in mind would be just fine if it wasn't accompanied by the inevitable grin of the smarmy Wim Thoelke (the TV show host)...

Remember this one? (You may regret it.)

Walks in the classroom
Cool and slow
Who calls the English
teacher Daddy-O?

Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown
He's a clown
That Charlie Brown

< Reflects that his own name is an earworm >

< Shamedly, puts his tail between his legs >

< Recalls that worms do not have legs. Is uncertain where his tail went. >

Every so often I get caught in a mental time warp (all the time according to wife and daughter) and I get all those nonsense songs from the late 1950s/early60s.

Can you imagine living with: The Witch Doctor; The Purple people Eater; My Old Man's a Dustman; Merry Christmas You Suckers; My Boomerang Won't Come Back; The House of Johan Strauss; etc. and then running into Spike Jones et al.

Some days it's not worth curing the tinnitis.

But I don't mind Fred Astaire songs (generally) from the Ginger Rogers movie days.

Totally off thread: I have been subjected to the local 'X Factor' and its content of screeeechiing and over emotion so much that I have been affected.

I went out and bought a Julie London CD.

Well done Bunyip. We have found that the "off" switch improves the U.K. X-Factor considerably.

Feel obscurely compelled to mention my firmly held belief that the Beverly Sisters would have done very well on the X Factor.

No. They could be heard and understood. They were affected by diction.