There are at least two approaches to any writing project. You can plan everything in advance so that you have a clear idea of your progress once you begin your writing, or you can just get started and see where you end up. I am taking the latter approach with this Blog, not planning too far ahead, and every now and then looking back to see what themes have emerged. The only day when I aim to post the same kind of article week after week is Monday, with its “Word of the Week”. Some weeks are dominated by Language, Learning, Music or Trivia. I create new Categories retrospectively, if a few pieces have emerged with a particular theme.

That’s how it is with Earworms. Having posted a few pieces about them at the start of the year it seemed right to make it a regular, monthly thing, to record which songs and snatches of songs had stuck in my brain and try to work out why. As in May, however, there have been no Earworms on my mind this month, nothing as strong as Queen’s “Keep Yourself Alive”, which was the first one I wrote about.

The closest we have come to an Earworm in June is “Drive My Car” by the Beatles but this hasn’t just emerged from nowhere: my 11-year-old son has been asking me to sing it. He has been watching old clips from “Strictly Come Dancing” on the web and found Johnny Ball dancing to it. One afternoon while we were on the High Road he asked if I knew it. All three verses, the chorus and the “Beep-beep, Beep-beep, yeah” came to my mind without having to think them through. I was about his age when I first heard it, on that double album with the red cover, “The Beatles 1962-66”. Most of the tracks were familiar but not this one. I always liked the final lines in the third verse, building up to a punch-line: “I’ve got no car and it’s breaking my heart / But I’ve found a driver and that’s a start”. I dug out my CD of “Rubber Soul” and we have been playing it during the last week.

“Strictly” is forming an interesting part of my son’s musical education. He identifies many songs from their appearances on the show. He associates “Dancing in the Street” with the big opening number from the first episode of last year’s series and “Wuthering Heights” with Alison Hammond in a white floaty dress from the previous year. Last weekend he performed in the Annual Show at his dance school, at a local theatre, tap-dancing at a local theatre to “We no speak Americano”. We definitely don’t have that one on CD, but he knew it from Mark Wright’s appearance on “Strictly” in 2014. You can see it here but be careful: this has big Earworm potential.