Rubber bullets

I'm prone to musical suggestion. Most of it I can decipher. But not all.

When I lived in scenic Thornton Heath and commuted into central London very day, there was a song that leapt into my head every time I hit the terminus. A Kinks number. See if you can guess what it was. I'll come back to it later.

Some are just weird.

Coming back into town from the Arctic Ale tasting, I hummed Abba. There's a particular chord change - it could be one that's only in my imagination - in their Eurovision hit that bounces around the closed court of my head like a squash ball. If only my internal soundtrack were classier. Sorry. I do Abba an injustice. If only it were more hip.

Coming to my credibility rescue are the John Coltrane tunes that sometimes bubble in my subconscious. No idea why. I don't even like jazz.

Potatoland is another fave. "Take my hand, and go to potatoland." Why does that phrase pop its head up from its burrow while I stare at my work screen? I probably don't want to know. Rubber Bullets - a song I don't even like - is another worktime companion.

The bus is worse. I've been re-arranging in my head the songs of our crap band. I'd tell you the name of the band. But it's just too embarassing. Even worse than the names of the songs. My new bass line for Hot Thing is way better than the original. And my adjustments to the chord structure have added a new dynamism. That's what I think. And you'll never be able to call me a liar, because it will never leave my head. That's the fun of virtual arranging. No-one can call it crap, as I'm the only one ever to hear it.

 A song about a long-dead monarch, famed for being as hip as wristbands. Bit out for the radical sixties.

But that's what I sang inside my head every morning for two years.