Sometimes to stop something from driving you insane, you have to share it with someone. Since the therapist that I never really got around to making an appointment with–even though Wifey, my family, PCP and local law enforcement think I did–is off doing whatever nonexistent therapists do (I assume listening to NPR friendly Spanish guitar music whilst cutting the address boxes off covers of waiting room bound volumes of Architectural Digest), I will just share my thoughts with the Interwebosphere: Stevie Wonder is a prick!! Here’s why…
OK, that seems harsh, maybe Stevie Wonder isn’t a prick per se, he’s sort of a music legend and he’s probably a good guy (he’s still alive, right?), it’s just that his fucking song Cherie Amour has popped in my head at some time or another during almost every single ride that I have done over the past 15 to 20 years and it’s driving me mad!
Do you even know what that’s like for someone like me??? Someone raised from the “up above it all” teat of metal, then sad bastard 80’s post-punk, indie, Brit-pop and un-US radio friendly alternative music! It’s a fucking life sentence to misery!
To me, Cherie Amour is the AM radio soundtrack to every dentist appointment I ever had, every waiting room I’ve wished my life away in while wondering who the hell reads Highlights as I flipped through out of date Popular Mechanics magazines telling me how I could build a rocket pack if only I had the right tools and a PHD in engineering from U of M. It’s every car ride I took as a youth as one of my parents hauled around a grandmother to doctors appointments, grocery stores and church functions. Despite its classic status amongst many music fans, Cherie Amour is a fucking hell on earth to me and I can’t stop it!!!
I’ve done cross-country, 6, 12, 24 hour solo and 100 mile races and Cherie Amour was there at some point. I’ve done road rides in ninety-nine degree heat and blazing sun and Cherie Amour was there. I’ve done zero degree slogs over snow-covered Michigan dirt roads in -20˚ wind chills and Cherie fucking Amour has been there. I’ve done 20 mile fat bike rambles, hour-long trainer rides, and everything in between, and at SOME point, that fucking song was sung or hummed in time with my cadence. It’s fucking maddening!
The worst of it all is that I have NO IDEA WHY!!! I never liked the song. Christ, I don’t even know the words. In fact, I didn’t even know the actual name to the song or who sung it until I hummed it to Wifey the other night while pleading with her to make the madness stop. Stop me from riding along at some point during nearly every one of my rides singing “Mo show-ree-a-more… blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…” A song, that ironically was first written by Stevie Wonder just over an hour from my current home.
It MUST stop. It has too. This isn’t a plea for help, it’s a demand for help. But how?
I once heard (probably from Wifey via NPR) that if you hum/sing The Girl From Ipanema, you can get a song out of your head. The problem with that is that I don’t like that song either. That song just makes me want to drink fruity rum drinks and look at vintage swimsuit babes, as I get drunk and try not to become aroused by women who are probably well into their 70s, or long dead. Why replace one problem with another?
I suppose I could be like some people and listen to music while riding and drowned out the tune in my brain, but I’ve never been a fan of listening to music while riding outside. It’s hard enough staying safe out there without being able to hear what’s coming from behind me, not to mention I like the sounds associated with riding my bike; the birds, my tires crushing gravel and dirt, my free hub spinning and even the sound of my squeaking chain that I keep meaning to lube.
***Heavy sigh/long, LONG sip of Hop-O-Thermia.***
I am hopeful that writing this and coming out of my Cherie Amour singing closet of shame will put the kibosh on the insanity and allow me to ride out the rest of my days in peace. If you also suffer with a similar tuneful ailment while riding, you have my sympathy. For now, with all this off my chest and yet another Cherie Amour ride completed a couple of hours ago, I am going to go listen to a combination of stoner metal (The Sword) and sports talk radio (The Two Robbies Football Show*) in the hopes of a Cherie Amour free night and rest of the weekend.
*Note: The Two Robbies just read and answered and a Tweet of mine on air. Nice! So now I am not only a full on cycling nerd but a football nerd as well!