Sometimes a Dragon...

Remember Pete's Dragon? That oh-so-70s Disney film starring Helen Reddy and Mickey Rooney? It was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. I think I had to have been about 4 or 5 years old. Something about this poor abused boy, his invisible dragon, and Helen Reddy's entire being struck a chord with me. Yes, "Candle on the Water" still makes me teary.

My brain's latest earworm is: "There's Room for Everyone." Today's headlines about immigration, warring countries, hate(fear) of the "other," and so on, make this simple song more profound than I remember it being. The message really hasn't changed:

There's Room for Everyone
Composed by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn

There's room for everyone in this world
If everyone makes some room
Won't you move over and share this world
Everyone make some room

Even a dragon deserves a place
A wide open space with no reins, no chains
He wants to play games, dance with you
Give him a chance to sing his song
He only wants to belong

There's room for everyone in this world
Will everyone make some room
Spread out while Elliott gets uncurled
Fly on his back and zoom

Rock him and ride him
And line up beside him
You'll see how quickly you'll blend
A dragon is just one more stranger in search of a friend

From an ant to a bird to a buffalo herd
Let them walk and fly and roam
Step aside, let them live
It's simple to give
Like us they just need a home

There's room for everyone in this world
Back up and make some room
Let's all move over and share this world
Everyone make some room

Just think how far out the ocean goes
The whirling wind blows shore to shore, door to door
Think of the valleys and mountaintops
The earth never stops
So deep and so high
With miles of sky
We all have part of the pie

Welcome the dragon while you have a chance
Give him his moment to rise up and dance

There's room for everyone in this world
Will everyone make some room
Love given freely can spare this world
Let friendly feelings bloom

Just give an inch, give a yard, never flinch
When the time comes to offer a hand

So let's all make sure we give everyone somewhere to stand
So let's all make sure we give everyone somewhere to stand
Just the way God planned it
Just the way God planned

Rossini in the morning

Today's earworm: "Voga, o Tonio benedeto," the ninth song in Gioachino Rossini's collection, Les soirées musicales (also called La Regatta Veneziana). It's a sprightly duet for women's voices. Funny thing is, I haven't sung this since I was probably 17 years old! Another day, another random earworm. Or so I thought...

I received an email this morning announcing the upcoming programs of the JP Concerts. To be honest, I didn't even read the email in its entirety. I glanced at it quickly (and I mean, QUICKLY), knowing I would visit the website later. I went off to work and, while I was walking to my office, I noticed I was humming the opening of Rossini's duet. I was stunned! I couldn't imagine how this tune could've seeped into my brain twenty years after I'd last sung it! I made a mental note to write another blog post. Then, while eating my (omg, so delicious) clam chowder, I had a chance to visit the JP Concerts website. Sure enough, listed at the bottom of the main page I spotted, "Soiree Musicale avec Duo saxophone et piano." Granted, this program didn't appear to include Rossini, but nevertheless, my brain decided to run with making the connection between soirées musicales and La Regatta Veneziana, and finally to Voga, o Tonio benedeto. Remarkable.

Now, back to my chowder (to which, due to the loveliness of Harvard Business School's catering company, I was given the option to add more clams as well as lobster)...

Today's earworm:

I've developed a habit. I have begun tweeting and Facebooking whatever music is running through my brain. You see, I almost always have a snippet of a piece of music playing in my head while I wend my way through my days. Right now, for example, "By Strauss" (George Gershwin) is swinging away in three-quarter time in my brain. Earlier today it was "The Wild Colonial Boy," which is an Irish ballad of sorts. My particular soundtrack version was the drunken one from The Quiet Man –– a charming movie from 1952 starring Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne. "By Strauss" makes sense, as I'll be performing it next month, but the ballad is completely random...or so it seems. The beauty of the subconscious is that it continues to 'hear' things long after our ears have moved onto other sounds and snippets. Who knows where I picked up my little Irish ditty??

This annoying trait isn't really new to me. I have suffered from this affliction my entire life. As an adult, I've learned to keep the music to myself, that is, until I started to tweet and status update it... As a child I would hum or do-do-do whatever tune was in my brain. My parents were kind enough not to hush me, as much as they might have wanted to...they let me sing and toodle away. I recall even singing myself to sleep almost every night. Singing calmed me and helped me focus. And it still does today.

While Wikipedia isn't a viable option for writing research papers, it's certainly handy for quickly learning about things like earworms or poutine*. Earlier today I was intrigued to read what Wiki has to say about the pesky earworm: "In a 2006 book by Daniel Levitin entitled This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, he states that research has shown musicians and people with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) are more likely to suffer from earworm attacks." Who knew?! 

*Google it. Yum.