I knew I was done for the minute I turned on the radio that morning. I could have turned it off but the worm was planted. The tune would haunt me for days. Too late to stop that, then.
Radio is my favourite medium. Back in the increasingly dim days of adolescence, my mother could not understand that I would study with the radio on beside me. Pop and rock as antidote to the ruthlessness of Macbeth, the indecision of Hamlet, the savagery of European history.
Even as I write this, the radio is on beside me, talk radio. The subject is murder mysteries. It’s as though there’s a sub-conscious layer to my mind that must be entertained before I can get on with a task in hand.
Besides, radio is great company. It is not as demanding as reading, scrolling or watching TV, leaving you free to do other things, such as write about how my day was usurped by a song that had wormed its way into my soul before I was even half awake. To be fair, it was not an entirely unpleasant realisation.
The “worm” was American Loudain Wainwright III’s The Swimming Song, a simple, catchy tune, with a simply catchy rhythm that I always find impossible to shake. “This summer I went swimming/This summer I might have drowned/But I held my breath and I kicked my feet/And I moved my arms around/I moved my arms around.” So it begins, and I am hooked.
Released in 1973, it became popular in Ireland when recorded by Canadians Kate and Anna McGarrigle 50 years ago, in 1976. The McGarrigles were popular in Ireland and Wainwright was then married to Kate.
I came across this and other Wainwright songs during happy, student Galway days. The Swimming Song was on his Attempted Mustache album which included I am the Way.
It went: “I can walk on the water and I can raise the dead (repeated). Don’t tell nobody but I kissed Magdalene (repeated). Every son of God gets a little hard luck sometimes (repeated)”, then “… Specially when he goes around saying he’s the way. I am the way (repeat).”
Belated happy birthday, Mr Wainwright, 80 yesterday.
Worm, from Old English wurm, variant of wyrm, for “serpent, snake”. In recent times used to describe “annoyingly unforgettable pop song”.