Perhaps you know that itchy feeling of hearing a well known pop song performed in a completely different genre and changed into an instrumental version. Sometimes it can be heard as the background music of restaurants.
Personally, I might even start humming, in order to hopefully recognize it and rename it to the original artist. It only lasts a few minutes while trying to figure out what it is. Then another song starts and the whole thing starts all over again. This can be so annoying, it gives me an itchy feeling. And if am unlucky it might bug me the rest of the day.
Early December I got a Lottery Ticket Advent Calender of which a box was supposed to be opened every single day. I opened them all at once and discovered the thing was worth eight euros. The last Saturday of last year my partner and I were discussing what to do with that money. I wanted to invest it in more lottery tickets, but he just laughed at the word ‘invest.’ According to him, it would be very unlikely that I would get more than the eight euros I was about to spend (he emphasized that is was spending or paying, and again: not investing).
After the discussion he went on reading the newspaper and I continued my knitting, while the radio was playing. Then I heard a jazzy, instrumental version of a well known pop song on the Soul and Jazz radio station. I couldn’t quite make it out. What was it? It sounded familiar, yet so exotic and unknown. Again that itchy feeling hit me. I got an immediate urge of scratching something. Anything. Everything.
While I was complaining about this, my partner could just hear the last bit of it and in an instance he said it was simple: Happy New Year by Abba. It turned out to be a contest as the guy on the radio mentioned. He called it his Second Hand Song, since it was a bit transformed by him on the piano. Before you could say ‘Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid’ I sent an email. And went on with my knitting.
Half an hour later the radio presenter said he was calling the winner of the contest and the phone rang about two times on the radio. Then it rang in the living room as well. Yikes, it was Rudy the presenter and he told me I had won his goodie bag! Hip hop hooray!
What about that for chances of winning?! I invested nothing and was happily treated to a nice stack of jazz cd’s that arrived yesterday. I guess the moral of this story is that my partner is right. The chances of talking to some guy with a very nice radio voice (you should listen to his show in the weekend!) is far higher, than turning my eight euros into heaps of money.
But of course being me, I am still going to give it a go and buy new lottery tickets. However, I am not silly, I do understand the chances of having my own swimming pool later this year is unlikely. Too bad there is no such thing as a second hand one.
Here you can find the well known song Happy New Year by Abba;
And the radio show The Real Mackay with Rudy Mackay is broadcasted every day in the weekend between noon and three in the afternoon on radio 6.
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This post is also available in: Dutch