Many years ago, I read a short newspaper story that has stayed with me ever since. It was about new research that had found that birds actually dream. And what do birds dream about as they slumber on their tree perches? Apparently, they dream of the songs they will sing tomorrow.

I know, “Awwwww”.

I too dream of the songs I will sing tomorrow. Well, to be more accurate, songs are often popping up in my head, whether I’m waking or sleeping. There’s a soundtrack to my life, and it’s not coming from headphones (in fact, I rarely play music via ear buds or headphone, and maybe this is why).

These are not songs that I want to listen to and some are songs I don’t even like. They just start playing, seemingly randomly, and leave me to solve their riddle as to what they are connected to. They are usually old songs I haven’t heard for a while. Many mornings I wake with a song going round in my head that has nothing much to do with anything. It’s just there. This music often has a shape in my mind, too, like a graph, with colours. In my imaginary mind, I know all the lyrics, too.

Usually, I don’t pay much attention to the songs in my head, unless they’re especially amusing or annoying. But this month, I thought it would be fun to make a list of what I’ve been listening to in my mind. Here goes:

Thursday March 20

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover came into my mind while waiting for a train. You know, “Get out the back, Jack, make a new plan, Sam…just set yourself free”. I had been thinking about the rat race and how awful it was sometimes to be trudging along with thousands of other workers, never getting very far. Or, I feel like a fish in a pond full of others, pushing and scrabbling when a few grains of food are dropped on the top of the pond.

In a way, that “rat race” is like a bad lover that we just can’t seem to get away from. My inner psyche is obviously telling me to make a new plan to do just that!

Later in the day, my song-brain wasn’t so kind to me. It started playing MmmBop!, that 1997 teenybopper hit by Hanson. Oh dear! I think my brain was inspired by an ad at uni for something called Kimbap, a Korean students’ group function.

Friday, March 21

Comin’ through the Rye: OK, I was watching a TV show about the Scottish highlands when this one started up. But they didn’t feature this song. I remembered it because I used to sing it as a child and once won a singing competition with it.

Saturday, March 22

Oh yes, a day when I don’t have to cross town on trains or buses. I can just work from home instead. It’s peaceful, and Everything is Beautiful comes to mind. I laugh to myself, because humming this song used to be a code long ago between me and a photographer I worked with. If we didn’t like the way our interview/photo shoot was going, one of us would start humming this song. And we knew the real words were, “Everything is shit-ful, in its own wayyyyy…”

I was too busy the rest of that week to think about writing down the songs in my head, but come Friday, I remembered again to take note. It’s good to have a break from noting anyway, because otherwise you might make conscious song choices.

Friday, March 28

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, by Leo Sayer. This is good, because it’s always been one of my favourite feel-good songs. And Friday is a feel-good day because I don’t have to get up early tomorrow!

Later in the day, as I’m walking to the bus at the start of my journey home, my brain is singing Barry Manilow’s Copacabana in all its glory.

On the train, I give up my seat to a pregnant woman, and straight away, Don’t Blame it on the Boogie, Michael Jackson’s great 1970s disco beat, is playing up a storm. This was one of my favourite songs in 1979 when I was a teenager.

Saturday, March 29

I’m writing a lecture for my master’s class on book history and the publishing industry, and up comes River Deep, Mountain High, the original 1966 Tina and Ike Turner version. No idea where that came from, but I like it.

Sunday, March 30

It’s 5pm, and I’m feeling calm about having done enough work to start the week with. The music starts and it’s a famous ballet tune whose name I can’t recall. But it’s very calming. When I come to write this blog, I remember that it’s The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, by Tchaikovsky.

Thursday, April 3

I’m on my way out the door to my job as a university lecturer, and that classic song, the theme from Sesame Street, pops into my head, just like that: “Can you tell me how to get, How to get to Sesame Street?”

Whatever next?

As I say, I don’t know where these songs come from, most of the time. My mum plays songs in her head too, but she takes it a step further: the songs in her mind are all ones she makes up herself. She said she doesn’t ever need to play the radio, because there are always new songs playing in her head anyway!

And with that, I begin a new month of madness—I wonder what songs this month will bring?