Hadda be Playin on the Jukebox

Warning – this post has more than a passing reference to pooh. Those of a nervous disposition, seek another post.

Warning 2 – This post has a certain school boy humour to it. Something my middle-school chemistry teacher (who incidentally had far too much enthusiasm for lessons which she said involve ‘burning things’) would say ‘was humour based in the toilet’.

We’re all too familiar with Muzak. To some it’s irritating, to others it’s something which slips by as unnoticeable as a fart under the duvet during the night. There are very few who rub their hands with glee at the invention of the stuff. Sure, there’s the odd Oxbridge music scholar, who now pay their childrens’ tuition fees at the best blazer-clad schools by knocking out weekly chart ditties in faux panpipes. Then of course there’s the shop owners, who have learnt that by matching the music to their target shoppers they can improve sales.

So where does that leave the choice of musak in toilets? Whilst contemplating life on that great white ring at Heston Services on the M4 today, my musing was accompanied by something more likely to be found on the playlists of DJ Spooney. Quite frankly, it had all gone Pete Tong. I’ll guard my comments until the Oxford University Scientific research which is doubtless being conducted by some bespectacled boffin, but when was it decided bowel movements were best accompanied by music of 120 beats per minute? Did I miss that item on BBC Breakfast News? Maybe Fiona Bruce and Dermot covered it whilst I was upstairs in the littlest room without the perfect musical accompaniment.

Not the most relaxing thing then, but it did start me thinking.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the top 5 songs to accompany toilet trips:

1. The Long and Winding Road – The Beatles
2. Relax – Frankie Goes to Hollywood
3. Break on Through (to the other side) – The Doors
4. Sitting, Waiting, Wishing – Jack Johnson
5. Trickle Trickle – Manhattan Transfer

• And a late chart re-entry: Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash

Sorry everybody. I had something good for today. Witty, cutting, full of cleverness, but when I sat down that was what came out.

For something a little more intellectual, it did have me listening to ‘Hadda be playing on the jukebox’ by Rage Against the Machine (my A-level English Performance piece), based on the poem by Allen Ginsburg.