Get Out of My Head

When I first heard it I was mesmerized. Maybe it was the backbeat that captured my brain or possibly the syncopated rhythm that snaked its way into my every thought. The melody was definitely captivating. Whatever the reason, I was ensnared in its clutches, and the song had no intentions of letting me go.

The tune sounded harmless enough the first time I listened to it on the radio. What was attention catching for me, unlike most rhythms, was a unique 5/4 beat instead of the normal 4/4 or 3/4 cadence. It must have been that extra beat that first piqued my interest. As I continued to become more and more absorbed by the smooth beat and the way it would run along in an even cadence for four beats then become interrupted by a rogue thump, shifting the smooth rhythmic flow into something totally different, a unique direction.

The song forced my mind to ask why. Why did the composer decide to disrupt the flow? Why did the rhythm shift during the middle of the song? Why, once the listener became settled in the song’s smooth jazz world that it created, was it necessary to interrupt his or her train of thought with a sudden beat shift?

It only took one time listening to this song to cause all these questions and so many more to run untethered in my mind. They are questions that will never be answered because both Paul Desmond the composer, and Dave Brubeck the musician who brought the song to prominence in 1959 are dead.

Maybe sometime in the future I will finally rid myself of this unending earworm. Until then, I will lay in bed surrounded by the black of night playing an endless loop of the song Take Five over and over in my head and asking questions that will never be answered.