Among the many things flitting through one’s mind during the course of a day—recalling what time practice starts, remembering a joke you heard in high school, trying to decide if the woman at the gym was smiling your way or if her underwear was merely riding up—is often found a particular song, set on infinite repeat, that refuses to go away. Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads from time to time; some are more vulnerable to it than others, but it happens to us all. (Scientists call these songs “earworms”, apparently not satisfied that the phenomenon is making us squirm with discomfort enough already.) It varies in its annoyance level, but it only becomes dangerous if you suddenly realize that your own brain has turned on you and declared you its enemy, as is currently the case with me.

My problem began several days ago. I was outdoors, moving heavy pieces of furniture from a storage area into a truck, so that they could then be unloaded and moved into an other, different storage space.

Some songs that get stuck in your head are welcome: snappy tracks that alight in your mind like a fun little elf and play a soundtrack for your day. Instead, what I got buzzed in like a horsefly and bit into my scalp like a match being struck upon the inner surface of my skull. Out of the blue, my braincase was suddenly, maddeningly and unignorably invaded by Neil Diamond’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial -inspired 1980s ballad, “Heartlight”. It just happened. One moment, my only thought was about how a nice frosty lemonade would sure not go amiss right now. The next moment, the treacly power refrain “Tuhn on ya haahht-li-agh-tah!” (Seriously, he somehow makes the word “light” have, like, ten syllables.) was pounding my thoughts like a rubber mallet to the cerebellum.

It’s important for you to understand that at the time I was not listening to any music at all, let alone Neil’s; nor was anyone in my vicinity, and nor had anyone done so recently. Further, I’m not what you’d call a fan, though I realize that as a native of Boston—where “Sweet Caroline” is played before the eighth inning of every Red Sox game and there seems to be a disturbingly disproportionate fan base—I might be considered an outcast. In fact, I’m pretty sure I hadn’t even heard that song in a good decade or so. Only my own brain can be responsible, and its motives are clear.

My usual course of action in the case of an earworm (ew…sorry, I won’t do that again) is to just listen to the song when I get a chance. This always seems to work as a kind of catharsis, satisfying whatever strange synaptic short circuit that’s causing the song to repeat itself. However, I of course do not exactly keep the Neil Diamond catalog handy. Moreover, I just didn’t want to listen to that horrid little ingot of mellow gold. I wanted it to go away, period.

Of course it didn’t, and the song continued to peck away at my soul for the remainder of the afternoon, reminding me just in case I’d forgotten during the past five minutes to let my heart light make a happy glow for all the world to see. I tried listening to music I like, each song a wad of musical steel wool with which I tried fruitlessly to scour the palate. My beleaguered head would not be appeased. That night, a broken man, I was forced finally to download the track. The whole time, my most desperate wish was that I wouldn’t die before I finished, leaving this last act of my life for all to witness when they found me in my chair, clouded eyes unblinking. The download finished, and I played the song back a good half dozen times in one sitting. Tears streamed down my cheeks, whether from the touching tale of Elliott and his alien friend or from abject suffering I knew not. But when I finally stopped for the night and I’d put eight hours of sleep between myself and Neil, it was all mercifully over.

Or so I thought. Hoped. Prayed. Neil Diamond and his abomination did not return the next day, to be sure. But in their place, my foul sponge of a brain gifted me with a new horror: Carly Simon’s Bond theme, “Nobody Does It Better”. In similar fashion, this song wrapped its tentacles around my every thought and refused to leave, all day. In similar fashion, I hadn’t even heard that song in years. Only my besotted cranium can be responsible, training its malevolent purposes upon me in full.

But surely this pattern can’t last? We all get songs we don’t like stuck in our heads now and then, driving us a little crazy. It’s no great revelation in my case, you’re perfectly correct in answering. I’m not so sure. For today, while in my car—a car which, it should be made plain, has a twisted tassel of severed wires where a radio would be—I was struck a third time, harder and with more malice than ever, with Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”. My entire trip, and the bulk of the afternoon, were spent in time-tested reflections on when it is appropriate to “hold ‘em” and when to “fold ‘em”.

Friends, I am under attack. My own mind, my only ally through so many of my adventures, has turned against me, and I’m at a total loss for what I can possibly do about it. I’m open to ideas. If you have none to offer, at least do me this favor: pray for me that tomorrow doesn’t bring Barry Manilow with it.