Does anybody else out there have the problem I have? The one where a particular song or melody gets stuck inside your head and plays on endless repeat until the next song comes around? Perhaps it’s an odd quirk of my particular A.D.D., but this has been around for as long as I can remember. For the past week, it’s been ‘Oye Como Va’, the Santana version. (We heard the Mambo Kings play it last Saturday, and it’s been stuck upstairs ever since.) Sometimes it’s wierd shit, like the aforementioned ‘Philadelphia Freedom’ (A POX ON YOU, REGINALD DWIGHT) and sometimes it’s pleasantly surprising—last week, I had some Carole King rocking my personal Wheels Of Steel—but usually it’s just annoying.

Simply listening to other music won’t erase the song. I’ve had iTunes on all week, and probably listened to a couple hundred songs since Monday. Nothing knocked it loose—I’d walk out to the car in the sweltering heat, and there it would be, ticking along happily like a busted jukebox.

This morning, I heard ‘Speed of Sound’ by Coldplay as I was flipping through channels to find CNN, and I listened to it as I collected email. I think Oye Como Va may now be gone, replaced by the warbling of Chris Martin, but I’m not sure.