Flashback to Rush's A Farewell to Kings

Way back in 1977, Rush released the album that took them to another level: A Farewell to Kings. Sure, 2112 caught the world's attention with its epic futuristic title "track", actually a suite of seven songs, which put the disc high on all-time lists of essential progressive rock albums.

Then All the World's a Stage, Rush's first live recording from '76, truly put the band on the map with its first gold, then not long later, platinum sales status. It didn't hurt that this exciting concert document served as a "greatest hits" of sorts for the millions of listeners who were new to Rush. A sweet introduction to Canada's top rock export.

A Farewell to Kings displayed not only the mad skillz of this Canuck trio but also employed more sophisticated songwriting and studio engineering. Yes, 2112 sounds awfully nice in its remastered form, but that style of music can't quite compete with the more mature and detailed work on Farewell. 

I must admit I haven't listened much to Rush over the past few years or so, but the other day I felt compelled to drop on Farewell, which I thought just might be my favourite of all Rush albums. Firstly, I was so happy to finally revisit my Rush roots once again. Secondly, the CD (un-remastered, as this was the very first compact disc release of the album... from somewhere back in the 80's) sounded immaculate. Oh, and after being suitably blown away by the disc, I got on the Amazon site and ordered the even more pristine remastered edition - about bloody time!

Since Rush has traditionally closed each chapter of their career with a live recording (every fifth album, and A Farewell to Kings followed a live set, this disc ushered in what I like to call the band's Golden Age. Some might argue that 2112 belongs in that same era, but I'd disagree. 2112 was still the Rush that played Working Man, Fly By Night and Lakeside Park. I feel as though Farewell was the beginning of a new Rush, a group who had grown musically and personally to the extent that they were well on their way to greatness. 

Think about what followed A Farewell to Kings, and fell into my Golden Age of Rush: the mind-boggling Hemispheres, the sleek Permanent Waves, and the band's most accessible masterpiece, Moving Pictures. 

A Farewell to Kings ups the ante on everything that came before. The most sublime pastoral pieces, the heaviest of metal meltdowns, the most tuneful of radio hits. And a blend of all of those within a single song, in some cases. Rush's ambition and musical prowess paid off in spades; the album became the band's first U.S. gold-seller, certified within just two months of its release date. 

Drummer and lyricist Neil Peart wrote songs here that have become Rush staples in concert and on radio: the title track, Xanadu, and Closer to the Heart are among the most beloved. Farewell, the song, begins with a classical guitar intro, shifting into a metallic rock vein - Geddy Lee in fine vocal falsetto form, Alex Lifeson sporting an angular, furious guitar solo. It's challenging stuff, primo progressive rock without a doubt. Xanadu is one of Rush's literary-fueled masterworks, a dreamy assembly of ideas from poet S.T. Coleridge's "Kubla Khan", expressively augmented by intoxicating and muscular rock guitar, drums and bass... not to mention the effective and atmospheric addition of synthesizers. Oh, and then there's that little ditty that got played three million times on the radio, Closer to the Heart. The perfect pop song. Heh. There was a time when everyone, even non-Rush fans, knew the band for that track. Of course, later on came Spirit of Radio, and then Tom Sawyer, as signature songs. 

But looking at deeper tracks on A Farewell to Kings, we see some polished gems that are often overlooked. Cinderella Man could very well have been the album's hit single... though its lyrics might have been a bit heady for the great unwashed. The song's mobile gait is fun and exciting, and Lee's singing is relatively restrained... and the chorus is light and melodic enough to have gotten some teen girls singing and dancing along... right? Then there's Madrigal, not a bad song, but one that I nearly always skip over. It's a soft, gentle thing that doesn't do a lot musically.... yes, it's textured and pretty, but it's also a bit of a snooze. Not what I'm normally looking for from Rush. 

And lastly, the song that has in recent years become perhaps my favourite song on Farewell, Cygnus X-1 Book 1: The Voyage. We get Book 2 on the next album, Hemispheres, just so you know. Anyway, Cygnus X-1 is a spacey heavy metal feast of fantasy. I'm positive that modern math metal bands took notes as they ingested this track. The story of a space traveller being drawn into a terrifying black hole is presented with more precision and aggression than I've heard from Rush before or since. Truly a sci-fi masterpiece that aspiring musicians woodshed tirelessly to hone their chops. Geddy, Neil, and Alex seem to weave this chilling tale effortlessly. Geddy in particular pushes his vocals to astonishing extremes. 

So... why do I love this album so much? Why do I consider it the best of all of Rush's albums - all twenty (my gawd, that's an impressive number) studio recordings? 

Well, let me begin by saying that five albums is a pretty good track record for most bands, whether in the 1960's or the 2010's. The fact that Rush knocked out an album just about every year from '74 to '93 is quite the accomplishment. And I'd say that just about every one of those albums was high quality, smart, creative music. Even when the boys slipped a little on a release, there were at least a handful of strong tunes on hand. And hey, even a "weak" Rush album is better than most other albums out there. Anyway, after '93, the band took more time off, for various reasons, between records. Kinda sad to hear they've hung up their touring kimonos now. But it's been a long and productive career for them, hasn't it?

As for A Farewell to Kings, this album simply represents the best of the early and sort of the best of what would come later. The instrumental and vocal power and the imaginative themes of early Rush became the solid foundation of Farewell. On top of that foundation we heard the trio experimenting with synthesizers and other exotica, expanding their musical vocabulary and expressing themselves with more sophistication and maybe even more feeling. And Rush's sound hadn't yet become as "catchy" and laden with electronics as some of their subsequent efforts. 

Rush has always enjoyed playing with the double entendre and symbolism in both their song lyrics and their album cover art. Lyricist Peart is pretty fly with the wordsmithing, always rhyming and double-timing with written dexterity. The cover art for A Farewell to Kings depicts a puppet medieval king collapsed on his throne, crown knocked to the ground, surrounded by modern-day urban decay. Take from that what you will. It's an intriguing image that stirs up debate about its meaning. 

Until Moving Pictures hit the scene in '81, I declared 2112 was my fave Rush album. Then Moving Pictures took top spot. The glossy and poppy Power Windows of '85 has long been a favourite, but it was tough to rank that over MP. For a while there, I thought maybe Permanent Waves could be numero uno... and it is an excellent disc... tuneful, heavy, riffy, and still proggy. But not an album that I reach for very often any more. 

A Farewell to Kings has staying power. Forty years after its release, the album still dominates the progressive rock genre. And I'd like to think that in another ten or twenty years, I'll still be rocking out to Xanadu and Cygnus X-1. 

Back to the 80's

I've noticed that in recent years there has been a wave of shows and movies that are set in the 1980's or at least embody an 80's sensibility. This fascination with that decade isn't so surprising... it was an exciting time! It wasn't all a bed of roses (Cold War, Chernobyl, Space Shuttle Challenger, Iran-Iraq War, Knots Landing), but even the darker side of life back then was fuel for a creative boom in the arts and entertainment industries; films, music, and literature... even video games... put forward some electric new ideas.

I transitioned from my teens to my 20's during the 80's, so I was at an age where I was in the middle of massive transformation in pop culture - at least the stuff aimed at my demographic. So the nightclubs and large venues where I saw live bands were where I saw the most change and growth. The brand new MuchMusic (Canada's version of MTV) was a huge part of my TV viewing - for better or for worse. My friends and I frequented the cinemas to see now classic films like The Terminator, Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Bladerunner, E.T., Karate Kid, Back to the Future, Aliens, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. 

Arnold as the T-800 (Model 101) Terminator.

Always the life of the party.

There was a definite vibe during that decade, though I guess since we were simply living it, we didn't really notice or identify it. Only now, as we reminisce about the good ol' days, do we see or hear that vibe. This was an aesthetic that found its way into movies and music especially. These media fed off of what was happening in the world, and in turn, issued their own version of 80's fashions - in clothing, hairstyles, language/slang, behaviours, music, movies, cars, and even home decor, just to name a few. So the cycle churned endlessly, and Hollywood in particular became the engine that drove how we lived our lives. Sort of. Within reason. Mostly.

Cannon Group was responsible in large part for that vibe with its focus on low to medium-budget genre movies: sci-fi, adventure, fantasy, action, martial arts, Chuck Norris, comedy, with a bit of serious film output on the side. 

On the major studio front, we had Arnold, Stallone, Van Damme, Clint, Bruce, Mel, Cruise, and so on. If this sounds too male-dominated, well, those were the biggest draws at the time, and were certainly aimed at guys like me. Movies for guys who like movies. Now you just tell me that there isn't renewed interest in these sorts of "tough guy" flicks. The quest goes on to capture the essence of those original action hero films. 

Now, back to the future... or should I say the present:

One common thread between the movies on my list below is the music of that bygone era... mostly rock and metal, but also a dash of pop, dance, and new wave. There is also a visual element, some probably spawned by rock and pop stars, then adopted by the public at large... stuff like headbands, big hair, the mullet hairstyle, parachute pants, spandex, guys' crop-tops, shoulder pads, scarves, blah blah blah. And then there's a larger cinematic view... the photography, how the movie is actually shot and lighted, the colour palette (bright neon and pastels figured into the 80's big-time), and how all these things meshed to create an atmosphere - that same distinctive mood that was the signature of so many 80's movies... shadowy with neon accents, often bleak and gloomy. The Terminator and Bladerunner come to mind. Oh, and I mustn't forget the synth-oriented soundtracks to many of these films. That certainly set the tone... and it's become a real thing to adopt that sound in modern movies about the 80's.

Miami cop Kung Fury (2015) takes on robots, a T-Rex,

Vikings, and Hitler. All in a day's work.

Off the top of my head, some favourite 80's-style modern movies and shows are:  

Kung Fury (a completely outrageous short film in the style of vintage action/sci-fi fare)
Stranger Things (a current Netflix series that pays homage to the 80's kid adventures)
Turbo Kid (a loving nod to over-the-top actioners of the 80's... funny, warm, and bloody)
Drive (its style implies the 80's, but we're never quite sure... the music, the look, that jacket!)
Only God Forgives (by the Drive director - less obvious here, but the tone and music work it)
Freaks & Geeks (totally 80's TV show... perfectly awesome and accurate... hey, I lived it)
Hot Tub Time Machine (ease into a goofy 80's flashback, complete with hair band Poison)
Rockstar (loaded with laffs and heavy metal cliches, all with a knowing sense of decadence)
Rock of Ages (an actual musical... and I liked it... loaded with 80's rock anthems)
The Wedding Singer (not so recent, but still... a fun flick that embraces that lovable decade)

Cool Movie Posters

I've been a fan of movie posters for almost as long as I've been a fan of movies. Even as a kid, in my early teens, I decorated my bedroom with posters from Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Because that's what you did back in the late 70's. 

It wasn't until the 90's that I truly became immersed in all things related to movies. Books, posters, movie still photographs, soundtracks, memorabilia, the films themselves. I didn't go overboard on these things, but I did assemble a satisfying assortment of display-worthy items. Not a completist in any sense, I did at least aim for the most attractive posters for my walls. Even today, I am discerning about what I hang about my place, especially given the space limitations. Though I have several nice vinyl LP record soundtracks for display purposes, I only hang a few at a time, rotating them periodically. I have more posters than I have room for, and though I could change them up now and then, I rarely touch what's already on my walls. For one thing, I can't think of many - or any - other posters I'd replace them with; the other thing is that I am really happy with what I've got set up now: Goldfinger, Casablanca, Star Wars, The Double Life of Veronique, and Three Colors: Red in my living room; and another Goldfinger and a Lost in Translation in the bedroom. These represent some of my favourite movies, so how can I possibly mess with that? I do put up my big Apocalypse Now poster for a while each year. 

There are so many unforgettable movie posters that span the history of cinema. The best of them make effective use of design....  an eye-catching combination of layout and colour and text and images (artwork and photos). A great example is the James Bond Goldfinger poster below.

Iconic images like those on the Jaws and The Exorcist posters are instantly recognizable. So many poster designs have entered into pop culture, into public consciousness. Like E.T., Star Wars (and its sequels... and maybe its prequels), and Back to the Future. Let's not forget less savoury, yet equally brilliant, film posters like those for Halloween, The Thing (1982), and Silence of the Lambs. 

I have a soft spot for the poster illustrations that dominated the medium before fizzling out after the 60's. The paintings were by accomplished artists, often very striking, sometimes subdued, sometimes evocative or just plain exciting. The James Bond films of the 60's and 70's boasted poster art along these lines. This franchise and perhaps the odd other rare exception were about all that brought the illustrative element into the 70's. Artist Drew Struzan seemed to revive that form of illustration with his work on the original Star Wars trilogy, Spielberg pictures, and much more. He built a career out of this sort of renaissance... in the vein of the imagery from the golden era of cinema. You know, a montage depicting the the main characters prominently - either at rest or in action, maybe secondary actors smaller and surrounding, and perhaps one or more thematic visual settings as a backdrop. A mood is set... something wondrous and thrilling, a dangerous adventure. 

There were some terrific bold graphics that were a departure from the painterly methods back in the 50's, 60's and beyond. Saul Bass was famed for his distinctive posters and movie title sequences for directors like Hitchcock, Preminger, Kubrick, and Scorcese.

From about the 80's onward, with few exceptions, we have seen mostly photo imagery on movie posters. For the most part, these worked just fine, but not many were standouts. My beloved James Bond film series suffered from rather lazy poster art designs from the 80's onward. I've discovered that the foreign (especially Japanese and Italian) versions of Bond posters were amazing and far superior to the UK and North American ones.

After some thought, and skimming a few online "Best Of" lists, I decided on a handful of what I think are among the coolest-looking movie posters of all time. Though I've seen all of these films, they are not all necessarily favourites; I can admit, though, that their posters are attractive and/or at least effective in their marketing role. 

Jaws - we ALL know this one: the massive shark about to spearhead the lone swimmer
Anatomy of a Murder - one of Saul Bass' most famous efforts, tied in with the movie titles
Casablanca - there are variations of this, but the version I have is pictured in the photo above
Endless Summer - bold and simple, evoking a hot steamy beach... and the surf lifestyle
Vertigo - though a static image, motion is implied... often imitated, this is a Bass art classic
Rosemary's Baby - even though I'm not fussy about the movie, the poster is creepy & weird
The Exorcist - now iconic, we are frightened of this scene even if we've never seen the film!
Apocalypse Now - that hazy orange sunrise, choppers mounting an attack. Quietly tense.
The Fan (1981) - the version with the white graphic "blade" aimed at Bacall - sharp!
The Thing - an unearthly and mysterious being poised in the snowdrift... hell on Earth?
Scarface - the image split into black and white halves, implying gangster Pacino's duality?
Moon - subtlly speaks to the protagonist's solitude... and his otherworldly dilemma
E.T. - two different posters, both imprinted in the minds of everyone: the bike; the fingers
Back to the Future - Drew Struzan did his magic here, and for the sequels
Lost in Translation - the "Bill on the bed" image says it all. I have the Scarlett in the rain one.
American Beauty - simple and evocative rose on the tummy... purity and its loss
Gone With the Wind - traditional romantic pose against a blazing bright background
Forbidden Planet - prime example of 50's sci-fi: far-out, spacey, sensational, sexy!
Silence of the Lambs - the simplicity of the colourful moth on the ghostly white face... creepy
Pulp Fiction - a cover of a tattered "pulp" novel, sexy dame, cigarette, gun... unseemly
Clockwork Orange - stylized graphic that says little but sets the tone for strangeness
Alien -  the egg, the tagline... the stark, uneasy darkness... sets the stage perfectly
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman - ridiculous & fun... what are those drivers looking at? Right?
King Kong - terrifyingly painted monster ape going wild, in all versions of the poster
Dial M for Murder - famous image from the Hitch film, reaching for the phone... redrum...
Lolita - everyone has seen this girl with the heart glasses, even if they never saw the flick
The Graduate - we all know this image: Dustin, the stocking rolled down Anne's shapely leg
The Godfather - the poster with simply the title and the marionette puppet hand... clever
Rocky - victory pose atop the steps. Hey, it inspired me!
Halloween - a simple yet unforgettable graphic image of the slashing knife and pumpkin head
Ghostbusters - the first "logo' to become a great movie poster design. Who ya gonna call?
Walk the Line - a colourful image of Johnny, guitar slung across his back. Sleek design. 
La Dolce Vita - bold, vibrant and painterly... passionate like the film and its characters
Forest Gump - simple. Like a box of chocolates. We get the idea. 
Amadeus - a film made powerful by fine music and acting and story. Dark and cryptic.
Eraserhead - weird black-and-white pic of a fuzzy-headed man. Watch this and freak out!
Star Wars - the very first poster art was a bit off... an update by Hildebrandt followed
The Terminator - epitome of the 80's? Or set the standard... shades, neon, big gun, Arnie.
The Shining - simple, bright, haunting... that face. No real connection to the movie, but still...
Jurassic Park - another strong logo design that today is still immediately recognizable. Roar!
Metropolis - art deco meets dark futurism, setting the tone for a mechanistic dystopian world. 

Terrible Teen Tees

When I was a teenager, my favourite clothes to wear were my band shirts and tour shirts. I had a small collection of them, and they represented my favourite musicians at the time. Most were harmless enough, but I had a few that raised eyebrows in my home. It was mostly my dad who narrowed his eyes at me whenever I appeared wearing one of my metal tees. The objections weren't always voiced but they were implicit as he exhaled deeply through his nostrils, clenched his jaws, and glared at me. Fair enough. 

My t-shirts back in the day - I'm talking late 70's and early-to-mid-80's - included a few Rush tees, a Triumph tour shirt, and Iron Maiden and Scorpions half-sleeves. Those half-sleeves were all the rage around that time, and it's kind of cool to see the style has come back.

I declared my allegiance to Rush by wearing a tee like this back in high school...

classmates either loved it or hated it (the same way they either loved or hated Rush)

A few of my Rush shirts were bootlegs, one of which I picked up just down the street from Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, where I had just seen the band perform... um, this was early 80's, by the way. The design was eye-catching - the prog-rock trio in action - and the price felt easier on my wallet. I also had a 2112 album cover design (band name plus the 2112 numerals above the shimmering red star) shirt and a snappy "man in the star" shirt. I got those from a funky below-street-level Toronto shop called Flash Jacks... a fave haunt of mine whenever I visited the big city. I wore all of those tees on a regular basis until I finally bought myself an official tour shirt when I saw Rush at their Grace Under Pressure show in T.O. The slick, abstract image from that GUP album cover was striking, and that tee became my favourite. All those shirts were retired as I grew out of them. Hey, I was a tall teen with some growing to do still. 

Of those Rush shirts, I think only the "starman" one got some stares from the father unit. After all, there's a naked guy standing there with his butt in full view. Any parent would question why their son would want to wear such a thing. But the folks saw this picture with no context to help explain its meaning; the image, of course represented the oppressed hero of the 2112 epic tale. I never bothered to enlighten them about this. They didn't ask... and probably just raised an eyebrow behind my back.

My Triumph shirt was from the Allied Forces tour... my very first large venue concert ever. I was a huge Triumph fan, almost as avid about them as I was for Rush. So a tour shirt was a given, as was a tour program and a button. I seem to recall that shirt didn't weather the laundry washings very well and didn't last me nearly as long as I would have liked. Anyway, its glistening chrome-like Flying V guitar image was far from controversial. A nice, safe rock shirt.

The Iron Maiden shirt I owned was another story... the brightly rendered painting of a giant grinning, re-animated corpse (Maiden's mascot Eddie, of course) hovering over a naked, red-skinned devil (could it be... Satan?) was a bit much for the Dadster. My memory is foggy on how it went down when the old man first saw this shirt, but I'd wager he eyeballed it with disgust, sighed in exasperation, and muttered something some expletive under his breath. No big confrontation; just bewilderment and disappointment in his first born. Fair enough. I simply made a point of not wearing that tee around the old fellah, just to save him some grief from my garish and ghoulish clothing choices. 

My Maiden baseball (or half-sleeve) style Number of the Beast

shirt back in the early 80's looked something like this. A fine

addition to any metalhead's wardrobe..

My Scorpions tee sported the big, bold graphic from the cover of their Blackout album: a mustachioed and bandaged man (a self-portrait of the artist, actually) screaming behind a sheet of shattering glass... oh, and he's got forks bent around his head so that the points go into his eyes. Lovely! I really liked that shirt... it was imperative that I display my loyalty to this German metal band. I was a big fan of their heavier late-70's-through-mid-80's music, and it wasn't until the late 80's that I grew unhappy with their new tunes. Anyway, again, the imagery on this band shirt was shocking enough that the head of the household disapproved... very obviously, if not loudly. 

My tastes in music never really led me to wear T-shirts any more outrageous than those couple, though. At the time, I wasn't into the more extreme metal. Not yet. No disturbing satanic graphics like those of Slayer... or worse. It wasn't until years later, when I was out living on my own, that I did get myself Metallica, Megadeth, and Black Sabbath tees. And even those were rather restrained. The older I get, the less ghoulish I want my band tees - I prefer something clean and simple, like a band logo, and not much else. 

The Early Bird Gets the Earworm

It happened again last week. My clock/radio alarm pulled me out of dreamland with that catchy tune A Cold Road by Danny Michel. Again. This was about the fourth time I'd woken up with the song. The thing was, I didn't even know the song - or Danny Michel - even existed until my first sleepy-eyed experience with it the week before. But A Cold Road would go on to dominate my thoughts for most of the day, playing like an internal recording on a loop.

It's a pleasure to have a First Aid Kit tune stuck in my head all day long

I don't like being jarred awake by obnoxious blathering DJs or loud abrasive music. So for several years now, I've set my clock/radio on CBC Radio 2 on the FM dial. At the 103.3 frequency, I'm more likely to be gently woken by softer, less shocking sounds. Stuff like indie rock and pop, sometimes lively, but at least less anarchic than the heavy rock stations. I was pleased recently to wake up to the song Emmylou by the folk duo First Aid Kit. A soft, warm rootsy tune that I really love. Perfect for starting the day. And it ended up playing in my head long after that. 

Whatever I wake up to, loud or quiet, it can stay with me. Sometimes for hours, sometimes all day long. That can be aggravating, especially when that wake-up song keeps intruding on my thoughts as I trudge through my daily tasks at work. I try my best to beat the tune out of my skull by summoning up other, hopefully catchier songs to replace it. Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn't, or at least not for long. 

The radio isn't always the culprit. A song can just pop into your head early in the day and stubbornly hang around for hours and hours. On the odd occasion, I won't mind if it's a great song that I love... like Van Halen's Mean Street or maybe Judas Priest's Stained Class or Beyond the Realms of Death (I've been re-visiting this classic a lot lately). Or more recent fare like Ghost's Mummy Dust. The repetition can get annoying but at least it's something I enjoy. 

The worst is when an unpleasant Nickleback, Rihanna, Taylor, or Kesha tune (all of them?) invades my mind grapes. At my workplace, the employees must endure modern pop on satellite radio all day long, and it ain't pretty. I can stand only a tiny percentage of the playlist, so the rest is either annoying at best or downright irritating at worst. It affects my mood. The "artists" I mentioned there are among my least favourites, but sadly they dominate the endless loop playlist. As a result, even the awful tunes sink into my subconscious, just waiting to re-emerge as an earworm at a later time. 

I'll take a David Lee Roth-era Van Halen earworm over Rihanna any day

I've heard the term "earworm" described as "stuck song syndrome". Many researchers have studied and written about the phenomenon. Some statistics suggest that songs with lyrics account for nearly three-quarters of earworms. It sort of makes sense... I rarely get instrumental music stuck in my head. Unless it's some fantastic Rush track like La Villa Strangiato or portions of Cygnus X-1 (Book One). But I never get jazz or classical songs running through my mind, even though I've listened to those genres a lot over the years. 

It's repetitive music that is most likely to become a "stuck song", which explains why dance and pop songs are the worst offenders. The lack of variation within the tune means the listener is hearing the same riff or hook repeated from back to front of the song. And that snippet sinks into your mind, whether you like it or not.  

An experience, hearing a word, or an emotion can trigger an earworm. Music is inextricably tied to experiences and emotions, so it's not surprising that even fleeting moments in our day can innocently set off an earworm. Some interesting data states that earworms typically last half a minute or less. And that's why it's catchy hooks, riffs, and melodies... vocal and instrumental... get re-played so often. Occasionally, if I'm stuck with something I actually like, I'll do my best to draw that brief hook out so that I can at least enjoy the whole song in my head. And that might even dispel the earworm, since I've seen the whole song through to completion. Another study pointed out that breaking the repetition can end the cycle... so it looks like I found a cure all on my own (I did that before I read about the study's findings).

So-called experts say that you can eliminate an earworm by doing moderately difficult tasks like reading a book, doing puzzles, or even chewing gum. I've never put any of those ideas to the test, but I might in the future. 

Author Daniel Levitin wrote in This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession that research has shown that musicians and people with obsessive-compulsive disorder are more likely suffer earworm attacks. So people with an interest in music, either as musicians or as avid listeners, are at greater risk. It might sound laughable but this sort of thing really can drive you up the wall when you just want to clear your head or focus on something else. 

Now that I've written about the earworm, I'm sure to have an attack of Kesha... better cue the Van Halen antidote.