The Bob Dylan Method

I suspect more than a few of us suffer from getting a song stuck in our head.

For a good stretch of my life, I woke to a radio alarm clock in the morning.   Waking to a music was generally pleasant and tended to knock the edge off of crashing from sleep.   On the downside, the song that dragged me awake often stuck with me for the entire day.  All day long I would be humming or outwardly singing the tune.

Often, songs I did not particularly like would get stuck in my head.

There is a simple cure for this affliction.  The trick to stopping a song from replaying endlessly in your brain, I learned from my neighbor, Kevin, is to imagine the song sung by Bob Dylan each time it pops into your head.

I assure you, this trick works.

Try this right now: Imagine Bob Dylan wailing away at Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”

How did that sound?

Yesterday afternoon, Kevin stopped by my house to discuss some upcoming work we are planning on our country road.  While we sat on my back deck chatting, the Bob Dylan method came up in conversation.

“It definitely works,” I said of the method.  “But what do you if it’s a Bob Dylan song that gets stuck in your head?”

“I have thought about that,” Kevin admitted.

“Maybe if you tried singing it like Roy Orbison,” I suggested.

Kevin thought for a spell.  “I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that,” he said.

“Well, in that case, I think it will work.  You’re welcome.”

-- Mitchell Hegman