Short Leash

Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you if you're young at heart
For it's hard, you will find
To be narrow of mind if you're young at heart

I woke up today with a song stuck in my head. Everyone has had that happen. Some people call them "earworms". My song kept me company all morning long: during my run, in the shower, on my way to work. And for the most part I enjoyed it. The song is Johnny Richard's Young at Heart:

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on the way

What's really weird is that not only is this song stuck in my head but so is the person singing it. It's the version sung by Jimmy Durante! So here I am walking around all morning hearing Jimmy Durante's voice singing to me. Jimmy Durante! And in addition to his deep gravelly voice I've got all these mental images of Durante floating through my consciousness. How lame is that? Are the stuck song gods playing a joke on me? I don't even know when I last heard the song. It certainly hasn't been recently.

Don't you know that it's worth
Every treasure on earth to be young at heart
For as rich as you are
It's much better by far to be young at heart

It's bad enough I can't control which songs get stuck in my head. But can't I at least control who's doing the singing? Why couldn't Faith Hill or Martina McBride or even Melissa Etheridge be singing Young at Heart to me? At least I'd be seeing and hearing one of them.

But Jimmy Durante?

And if you should survive to a hundred and five
Look at all you'll derive out of bein' alive
And here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart.

K-