HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs

Subject: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 05:48 PM

I'm worried. It's 104 days to Christmas and all I can hear in my head is "Oh the holly and the ivy, WHEN THEY ARE BOTH FULL GROWN, OF ALL THE TREES THAT ARE IN THE WOOD, THE HOLLY BEARS THE CROWN, Oh the rising of the sun AND THE -" and so on.

There has to be something I can do short of a lobotomy? I've occasionally got thoughts that are worth listening to, but the Holly and the Ivy doesn't think so. And before that, it was Sound Your Instruments Of Joy, because of the flaming Watersons.

Mudcat, please help. Seriously, I'm contemplating making a time machine and finding it before it was written and stopping it's existence, which would mean that I wouldn't know any songs at a carol session in Sheffield. I'd rather not do that please.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: RTim
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 06:24 PM

Are you getting fatter and growing a white beard??

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: ClaireBear
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 06:32 PM

Which tune are you hearing in your head? That makes all the difference: If it's the one the Watersons use, there may yet be hope for you. But if it's the other one, you may as well bring your brain in for reformatting.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: ClaireBear
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 06:35 PM

How about a nice dog-training song, for a change of pace? Here you go:

Shepherds arise...

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 07:00 PM

The guy I play with in Sandy Bells on Sundays has already started doing Jimmy Shand's "Welcome Christmas Morning" every week, and last Thursday I heard someone finish off a pub session with (the old version of) "Auld Lang Syne".

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 09:12 PM

Oh dear..I listened to a bunch of Bing Crosby carols today. Whatever virus is causing this, it has crossed the broad Atlantic..and reached the shores of the Pacific. mg

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 09:16 PM

I feel your pain, Drug Crazed. Really.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 09:32 PM

My mother would whistle one line from a Christmas song any time of the year, over and over and over until I complained. I'd get 5 or 10 minutes of quiet, then she'd start again. When I say "one line", I mean the tune part of "Deck the halls with boughs of holly falalalalalalalala" AND THAT WAS IT. These days I don't seem to have much patience, but I somehow managed to not kill her--not even once!

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: JohnB
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:18 PM

I went for a Blood Test the other day.
As I walked into the building (OK Ouch!) I passed a truck which said something about "Rhudolph and Reindeer" on the door.
I then sat down opposite a guy with a long white beard and white hair, he also happened to be wearing RED pants and a Red T shirt.
From our brief conversation he seemed like quite a nice jovial character.
This is a TRUE STORY Honest, JohnB.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:48 PM

The, uh, Twelve Days of Christmas.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:53 PM

Spike Milligan's 'Silent Night'

Enjoy!

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 05:24 AM

Nope, not the Waterson's tune (I don't think so anyway, unless I haven't found it). It's the one that everyone knows.

Where can I get a brain format then? I do quite like it due to it's simplicity, but still, so early before christmas?

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Hesk
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 07:33 AM

Known, rather aptly, as an "ear worm". It is also catching. Is it your intention to spread it to all Mudcatters?
Try "A Pizza Hut, a Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut" instead. This could cure you of the "Holly and the Ivy", but..........

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 08:59 AM

I previously had it with Sally Brown, but I sang that at a session and it went away. Don't think the same tactic will work here.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 09:11 AM

We call that an ear-worm. I have two theories.

1. Try to banish it by having other music in your life. If you play or sing, play or sing something else. Or put other music on the radio. Perhaps that will displace it.

2. Take an allergy pill, such as Claretin. When allergies are bad, the cerebral-spinal fluid is under excess pressure. I have a theory that the pressure is irritating the brain cells that store the song in the ear-worm. (When a body part is irritated, it responds by over-doing its job. )

This is my own theory, and it has no basis in medical research or doctor's advice. But doctors probably don't regard ear-worms as important, at least not as important as heart disease, say, or breast cancer.   

3. Other people think that if you simple capitulate and sing the song, that it will go away. Not sure if I believe that myself.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: I don't know
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 10:11 AM

I have been listening to Kate Rusbys Sweet Bells album for several weeks now. Got brought it as a early xmas gift!!! It is fantastic.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: GUEST,Ebbie
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 10:35 AM

When my daughter was half grown she would complain that I, her mother, was so slow in catching the 'Christmas Spirit' that it wasn't until a week or two after it was all over that I would even sing or whistle the tunes. It was true. Don't know if it is still the case since no one is around to hear me.

I did catch myself whistling one line from Winter Wonderland the other day.

Maybe you just never noticed before? Perhaps all this time, behind your back your friends have been calling you 'DrugCrazed, the Christmas Sprite? :)

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: open mike
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 10:51 AM

i did hear "White Christmas" on the muzak at the doctor's office yesterday..

and it reminded me that soon the stores will all start pushing x-mas...

but they will exploit the heck out of halloween first...

then down with the orange and black and up with the red and green...

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Reinhard
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 11:00 AM

That's tradition, Mike. Every year, Christmas season begins on my birthday when the stores start stocking gingerbread and almind biscuits,
end it ends on January 15, the birthday of my niece, when the Christmas tree finally gets thrown out of the house.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: GUEST,crazy little woman
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 12:22 PM

Sometimes a song is in my head and I realize that it's being triggered by something in my environment.

Last week I woke up with a song we had sung in choir in my head. (I hadn't given that song a thought in years.) It went:

Sing we No-el, no-el, no-el!

After a while I realized that I had been reading a novel with a character in it named Noelle. That was the trigger.

So, Drugcrazed, (OP) see if there's a tie-in such as that between your life and 'The Holly and the Ivy.' Sometimes it helps to know where the song came from.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 05:33 AM

sounds like an epidemic of acute tinsel-itis......

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 10:53 AM

Crazy Woman, I think I just had the Folk Song A Day albums on shuffle so just had the Holly and the Ivy playing. It occasionally goes away, but then it's back. I've had Young Banker in my head for ages but I don't mind that one, since you know, it ain't out of season...

Big Al, be ashamed for that pun. Be very ashamed.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Mysha
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 12:57 PM

HI,

Well, maybe you could sing the The Ivy and the Holly lyrics a bit? It might not rid you of the melody, but at least it would give a somewhat different perspective.

(Do we really not have those lyrics, or is it just that I can't find them?)

Bye
                                                                  Mysha

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 02:52 PM

You must nurture and develop the actual recognized phobia that presents itself as a real and actual fear of Christmas.

That will take care of your problem.

Popularly, having that phobia is known, in psychiatric circles, as being a Noel Coward.

I hope this helps!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 03:28 PM

Try this other song about Holly

One member of Alchemy is on mudcat as Capella.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 03:30 PM

Ohhh Big Al.. do tell just how cute is your tinsel? 8~0

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 04:01 PM

Do you know this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afUPkM5n0Po

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 04:56 PM

As you may have guessed, blank guest was me, didn't realise I had no cookie. So used to it being there.

Mysha, I'd be surprised if we didn't have it in the DT (if not then I may as well add it). I might just give in and record it and hope that it goes away. I could pretend it's a Christmas project or something. I just don't want to annoy my flatmate...

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Mysha
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 05:56 PM

Hi,

No, I didn't mean the lyrics for The Holly and the Ivy; we do have those. I meant the lyrics for The Ivy and the Holly, to the same tune, as those were the lyrics I suggested you sing. We don't seem to have them, but we do mention they are by Sid Kipper so they should not be too hard to find elsewhere.

Bye,
                                                                  Mysha

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 06:13 PM

A bit like:

"The Ivy and the Holly."
From "Arrest These Merry Gentlemen."

Chorus: Oh, the ivy and the holly
You'd know if you had seen 'em,
Of all the trees that grow in the wood
They've no good points between 'em.

Oh the Ivy have a berry, as black as any sin,
It's not much use in jams and pies, and horrible in gin.

Oh the Holly have a stalk, as green as any veg,
If you chop it up in salad it will set your teeth on edge.

(Chorus)

Oh the Ivy have a poison that makes you itch like hell,
If you boil it up in stew, it will make you sick as well.

Oh the Holly have a root, beneath the earth it rots,
And if you suck it slowly, it will bring you out in spots.

(Chorus)

Oh the Ivy have a leaf, sometimes it's variegated.
Sometimes it's not, which goes to show how things get complicated.

Oh the Holly have a flower, that's hardly worth a mention.
And I don't see why these two trees should get all this attention.

Chorus: Oh, the ivy and the holly,
When they are both full grown,
Oh the ivy needs the holly, for
It can't stand up on its own.

Subject: RE: HELP: Can't stop singing xmas songs
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 15 Sep 11 - 10:40 AM

Mysha, I'll give it a look up today while I'm working in the library. I'm steadily losing my mind not having an internet connection in my house. Maybe that's the problem...