Hey look me over....

I'm not sure what it is but there's something in my brain which suddenly and unexpectedly bursts out into song. I suspect it's inherited from my Father's genes as he had a habit of coming out with songs like "Teddy Bear's Picnic" at the oddest and most inappropriate of times (ie when no Teddy Bears or picnics were in view).  Putting "Musical Tourettes" into the search box of the Urban Dictionary reveals:

"Musical Tourette's
An artificial form of tourette syndrome in which the singing or speaking of a line from a song by one individual produces the spontaneous and not entirely voluntary singing or speaking of further lines of said song by another individual. This phenomenon is most often seen among people in good moods."

At least it doesn't finish "..or on the edge of madness" or give any sub-class of the form where there is NO external stimulus or feed line involved.

This habit can become very disconcerting and irritating to other people (eg my sister-in-law) and I try to control it in mixed Company, but when I'm sitting working with Holly & Lily asleep on the carpet beside me I'll very often let rip with a couplet from side three of "Blonde on Blonde" or a cracking line from a Hendrix classic.

This evening, however, I was siding the pots (Northern colloquialism for sorting the dishes out after a meal) when I blurted this out in what I can only describe as a tuneful way:

"Hey look me over, lend me an ear,
Fresh out of clover, mortgaged up to here,
Don't pass the plate folks,
Don't pass the cup,
I figure whenever you're down and out,
The only way is up..
And I'll be up like a rose bud,
High on the vine,
Don't thumb your nose folks,
Take a tip from mine,
I'm a little bit short of the elbow room,
But let me get me some,
And look out world, here I come..."

The interesting thing is this song is from some old Lucille Ball 1960 Broadway musical which I've never heard of called Wildcat and it's a song for which I have no liking or affinity. I make it my business not to exhibit an overt interest in musical theatre (although I can do most of South Pacific and Oklahoma from memory). I must have taken it in via osmosis over the last 50 years and the 13 lines are now sat there clogging up my internal mental hard drive and preventing new and more important data from getting a foothold. Stuff like the name of Magnolia, the BBC Director General or where I left my pesky glasses.