My #InternalDJ and the Playlist it inspires

I was reading @riverflows great post about the Rolling Stones being a frequent earworm and it reminded me I've been meaning to do a post about something I have, which is an earworm, but I've taken it a little further.

Sometimes you get an earworm, a song or tune, stuck in your head and it's easy to identify where it comes from. Maybe it was on the radio when you're alarm went off, or there's a new advert on television which uses it and every time you see the ad, the tune sits in your head for hours. Sometimes something you see, hear, or think about gives you a direct link to a memory about the song and that's why you can't shake it.

But, sometimes, I get a tune in my head and I just cannot trace what triggered me to start thinking about it. It might be the whole song, or just a line. Occasionally I've had to spend many minutes tracking the song down because while a fragment of it has sprung to mind, I can't dig the rest of it out of my memory.

I have labelled all of this the actions of my InternalDJ. You can see the rascal behind a pair of decks up at the top of the post.

Some days my InternalDJ is absolutely on point and drips fantastic tunes into the gaps between thoughts. Other times I think they may have consumed to much by way of recreational substances, or had too little rest, or are playing a cruel joke, and the music is questionable in terms of quality or amount of song remembered.

Some time ago I began a playlist which catalogued these random songs which popped into my head. And they had to be random. If I can identify a trigger to me calling the tune to mind, it doesn't get in. And there are some songs which I have not included because I find them or the artist who produced them, too objectionable. At such times remind my InternalDJ that, as an aspect of my subconscious, they need to do better.

The original playlist was lost when I decided to leave the music streaming service it was on due to a difference of opinion on where they spent huge amounts of their money.

I restarted it on iTunes and here's a link to my current InternalDJ playlist

You'll notice a fair mix, which is reflective of my tastes - after all, for my InternalDJ to spin the discs, I must already know the songs. There's current (Lizzo, Harry Styles, Devin Cole), Reggae (Paul Blake, Eddy Grant), Britpop (Garbage, Sleeper), Hi pop (B*witched, Britney Spears, Katy Perry), and absolute class acts (Manic Street Preachers, The Doors, Joni Mitchell) and loads of others, including the the first song played on BBC Radio 1 when it launched (1000 @Ecency points to the first person in the replies to identify that one).

Sometimes I'll go a few days or even weeks where hardly a song is added, other times there might be a few put on in a single day.

It's a great way of having a playlist of songs I know I like, but which I wouldn't necessarily think to put on for a listen. If you use iTunes, you can follow along and see when there are updates to the list.

Have a look, have a listen, and let me know if you have something similar.