If you don’t know what an ‘earworm‘ is then clearly you’ve never listened to the legendary Shaun Keaveny on BBC 6 Music, tut tut.
Since I began training for this trip I’ve found that when I’m out on the bike for long solo rides my brain passes some of the time by remembering snippets of songs with lyrics that are relevant to the situation, and then looping these over and over!
So I’ve had plenty of ‘earworms’ during the first week of my #SambaCycle, for example…
On day 1 it was Rudimental (the “der-de, der-de, der-de, de-der, not giving in” bit) which I’d heard in a few recent spin classes so was clearly well associated in my mind with sweaty pedalling!
It only took until day 3 for The Great Escape to make an appearance – for those that don’t know, this is used as a popular England football supporters chant.
During the downpour on Friday I was literally Singing in the Rain as I cycled along.
There’s also been a couple of setting off songs; the Willie Nelson classic On The Road Again and of course Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again, although in this one the “on my own” lyric seemed a bit rude to Luis so yesterday morning I changed some of the words:
Here I go again with Luis, cycled on Floripa Bridge dodged the police, last night Rodrigo cooked a healthy feast, no doubt in my mind, we’re having a great time, here we go Brazil!
What’s that, Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s on the phone and he wants me to write the lyrics for his next musical?…
UPDATE 05/02/14: Since my original post above I’ve had some new songs looping around in my head:
After the two early punctures my tyres have been fine (and I’ve steered a bit more carefully when necessary!) so in the spirit of wishful thinking I came up with a chant that changes the Beastie Boys lyric to “No, Flats, Til Belem!”.
During the long uphill climbs that I’ve had recently it helps to get into a smooth pedalling rhythm and so I’ve found myself “rolling, rolling, rolling” along to the theme tune from Rawhide – where did that one come from?!
And following on from the setting off tunes mentioned above, the other day I checked my Garmin to find that I’d covered exactly half of the km for that day’s ride, which made me think of the Barmy Army and how during the 4th innings of a test match they sing Bon Jovi‘s “Oh we’re halfway there, woah livin’ on a prayer” when England are halfway to victory. So now each day I’m watching the Garmin for that moment and then singing in celebrationcelebration of getting closer to my destination, and also that it’s probably time to stop for lunch.
UPDATE 06/03/14: When I found out during the cycle to BH that I’ve got tickets to all the England World Cup games it made me think ahead to reaching Manaus, and I came up with new lyrics to the Guns’n’Roses song Welcome to the Jungle for the England fans to sing:
(Intro) Derr, nerr, nerr, ner, ner, ner. Derr, nerr, nerr, ner, ner, ner.
Welcome to the jungle, for the Italy game, England in the Amazon, this makes quite a change, cos Wembley can be warm, but this is f’ing hot, we’ll party with the Italians, whether we win or not. Jungle, welcome to the jungle and this crazy Brazil w-w-w-w-w-w-world cup, cup, cup!
(Repeat)
