Strangers are staring at me. No, I'm not paranoid, and I'm not a beautiful person. But ever since I saw Linda Linda Linda, a sweet yet perceptive film about the dreams and aspirations of high school girl musicians, the title song has been stuck in my head. The toughest part? It's sung in Japanese. So now I find myself singing "Linda Linda. Linda Linda Linda" and humming the insistently memorable tune over and over again. It's just so darn catchy. (Check out the clip from the movie.)
I don't really mind, though, because I loved the movie, which follows three Japanese girls who recruit a Korean exchange student to become their singer so they can perform at an important school function. And I'm not alone in loving the song, which was originally recorded by the seminal punk band The Blue Hearts in the 1980s. (Watch this clip for evidence.) Japanese pop culture expert Patrick Macias says on the DVD that the song is still a karaoke favorite and that learning all the words makes foreigners instantly cool (or words to that effect).
Songs from movies have gotten stuck in my head before. Way back when, I found myself constantly singing "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and then I became a John Williams freak, humming and tapping my fingers to music from Jaws, Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I hated disco, so I worked very hard to keep all those songs from Saturday Night Fever out of my head.
Moving forward through the 80s, 90s, and 00s, I'm hard-pressed to think of many movies that sent me out the door humming their tunes. I looked through the Wikipedia list of Oscar-nominated songs, and very few stand out in my mind: "Ghostbusters," "Blame Canada" (South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut), "Falling Slowly" (Once). I can't recall any songs, or even musical themes, from this year's crop of movies.
How about you? Have any recent songs become lodged in your head? Or do you have old favorites that keep popping out of your brain?
1. awh.. Not a fan of Huey and Pineapple Express?
Posted at 11:38AM on Jul 8th 2008 by Monika