All I wanna do is get this f*ing song out of my head

Two weeks now. From the moment I get up until I wake up the next morning. It’s there like my neuroses, keeping me company.

This song is—what do you call these? It’s one of those rare songs that is so musically and lyrically compelling and catchy, but the story it tells is repellent. I can’t stop listening to it (really, it’s been in my head since it came out in ‘87), probably because it mixes the sacred (the beauty and catchiness) with the profane (the immoral message).

I like some profane in my sacred the way I like putting peanut butter on chocolate. It’s irresistible. That’s probably why I had such a longstanding obsession with Madonna.

You know this song. And if you’ve ever listened to the lyrics, you probably think of it the same way. Ann Wilson does. She sang it because Heart had contractual obligations to their record company in the 80s, but she didn’t like it:

Some Andy McDowell-Susannah Hoffs-looking chick drives down a highway at night trying to get up the duff while her impotent husband is sleeping at home. Then she lies to her man and runs into her sperm donor at the same motel where she banged him, bastard in arms, and acts all Lady Madonna about it.

I mean, really.

I know only one way to deal with contradictions like this. When this song comes on, may you always hear this.

(Verse)
♫It was a balmy night
When he came onto site
Standing by the door
Greasy forelock, large pores

Then he walked up alongside
And he offered me advice
I accepted with a smile
So we’d knead for a while

I didn't ask him his name
that carb-y boy with the grains
so tell me it's right, that it's good from first bite
don't run off for home, we're baking tonight

(chorus)
All I wanna do is make loaf with you
One bite of yeast is all we knew
All I wanna do is make loaf with you
With glistening dough, to cleave in two

(Verse)
So we warmed that old stove
And slid our dough into the cove
We made pastry that night
Oh, he made every slash right

He brought the patisserie
So many times, easily
But as the morning lightness broke, all I left him was a note
I told him, ‘I am the flour, you must accede. You left me some starter. It gave a good feed. Don’t try to find me, please don’t you dare,
Just live in my baked goods, you’ll always be there’

(chorus)
All I wanna do is make loaf with you
One bite of yeast is all we knew
All I wanna do is make loaf with you
With glistening dough, to cleave in two

(bridge)
aaaa-aaaah. . .
We made loaf
Not like bakers
All night lo---ooooong. . we made loaf

(Verse)
Then it happened one day, he came ‘round the same way
You can imagine his surprise—when he saw his own ryes
I said, ‘Please, please, understand; I’m in love with a baking pan.
But the grease it ain’t give me, whoah-oh-oh-h, is the one little thing that you can!’

(chorus)
All I wanna do is make loaf with you
One bite of yeast is all we knew
All I wanna do is make loaf with you
With glistening dough, to cleave in two

FIN

-by Josh Slocum and

Sarah