Catch

The thing with tunes is that no matter how much I like them and how often I listen to them the process of them working their way into my personal internal playlist is often painfully slow. I’ve known Troy’s Wedding forever (it’s on Borders), and I’ve been playing it for a couple of months at least, but only occasionally do I find that it’s in my head: normally I have to think hard to conjure it up.

The Heights of Dargai is something else, though. As far as I know I first came across it when I was looking to tunes to play with Somme and Magersfontein. I probably listened to the midi, which is always only a general suggestion of a tune and not a real tune, to my mind, and I may have found a YouTube clip, but that’s it. It can’t even have appealed to me that much, because I haven’t printed myself a copy of the dots and I don’t recall having tried to play it.

When JDM’s CD arrived I recognised the name, and the moment it came on I was humming along as if to a tune I know really well. I’ve been humming it ever since. So it’s all the odder when it looks as though it isn’t even the Heights of Dargai I looked at before. Is this some major change in my brain that it has developed an ability to remember a tune I’ve only heard once or twice, or do I actually know it from somewhere else, or is this simply the catchiest tune in the world?

(I wrote this post this morning...this evening I couldn't hum a note of the blasted tune if my life depended on it....)