Can't Get 'Can't Get It Out Of My Head' Out Of My Head

by Robin Hilton

Earlier today, we had the band Telekinesis here to record a Tiny Desk Concert. While they were warming up, I heard the group's lead singer-songwriter, Michael Benjamin Lerner, picking out the Electric Light Orchestra song "Can't Get It out of My Head." He sounded great, and I love that song, so during the performance, I put him on the spot by asking him to do it again. He said he didn't really know the whole song, but he gave it a shot, saying that his father had gotten him into ELO when Michael was growing up. He was a good sport about it.

Another one of the producers here, Mike Katzif, is on a mission to find different versions of "Can't Get It out of My Head." My hat's off to him for digging up this live version ELO performed on The Mike Douglas Show. The band does some other songs, but "Can't Get It out of My Head" starts at the 4:42 mark.

Now the song is stuck in my head. Or, really, it's just the refrain, repeating over and over again. "I can't get it out of my head," skip, "I can't get it out of my head," skip "I can't..." You get the idea.

Bob Boilen talks about a couple of particularly addictive songs on the latest edition of All Songs Considered -- The ApSci song "Crazy Crazy Insane" and The Phenomenal Handclap Band doing "15 to 20."

What's a song you're helpless to stop once it starts playing in your head?

5:27 PM ET | 06-17-2009 | permalink

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