Sometimes it’s just torture.
My neighborhood grocery store is under new management, and they now play adult contemporary pop songs on the speaker system. I was serenaded by Vegas showgirl Celine Dion the other night, whose “My Heart Will Go On” seems to be making a comeback.
I heard it again several times in both its instrumental and lyrical form a couple of nights later while watching Titanic, of course the song’s reason for existence. (There are other reasons to dislike the film. This is just one.)
We watched Brokeback Mountain immediately following. I must have been hell-bent on feeling miserable that night. Though it was fun to rewind and replay, over and over, the part where frozen, lifeless Leo slips from the piece of wood into the North Atlantic.
The final straw came the very next morning, when I heard — but maddeningly did not see — a subway busker playing the song on some kind of pan flute. This unhappy coincidence guaranteed it sticking in my head on infinite loop for days.
…
I once saw Victoria Jackson do a stand-up routine in glorious Lansing, Michigan in which she re-enacted the penultimate scene from Titanic the movie.
Rose! Rose, if you shift your fat ass, I can fit on this piece of wood, too!
She also sang a fantastic parody of a Jewel single — “These ghoulish fangs are tearing meat apart…”. Luckily, Jewel is rarely as adhesive as Ms. Dion.
... but enough about me 