Written by Nick Leitzke

Tonight as I waited for my nachos grande at Sheetz I noticed the employees were listening to the R&B channel on their radio. This was a welcome change to the typical bad pop that may or may not be Top 40 I usually hear at Sheetz. I wouldn’t know Top 40 anymore if it shanked me with an iPod Nano. All I know is that when I’m waiting for food at Sheetz I usually hear something that sounds like Chris Cornell doing Counting Crows covers. Tonight it was hopping bass and horn sections, a killer combination. I nestled against the food case with all the cheese cakes and Oscar Meyer sausage snack kits and waited for my nachos with a nice grin.

And then it happened, as it usually happens when I’m listening to music on a public institution’s radio. I heard a familiar bass riff, followed by a vocal intonation, and I knew what I was hearing. The lyrics only validated my condition. It was the Temptations singing “Ball of Confusion,” and the next thing I knew I was laughing. I was laughing at visions of Robert Downey, Jr., at the beginning of ‘Tropic Thunder’ waving his arm at a helicopter and yelling, “Lay that shit down!” Nobody saw me laughing, which was okay. Even if someone noticed me I wouldn’t have been able to do anything but keep laughing. This is a condition I have, and I have lived with it for years. I never want to be rid of this condition, this affliction of instantaneously connecting random song with its corresponding scene in even more random movie. Not many people are able to do this as often as I do. It just happens. I love it.

A few recent cases in point:

1) While sweeping the floor at the coffee shop that employs me I heard a tango piece on the radio. Immediately I thought of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tia Carrere, and I realized I was listening to the song they dance to at the beginning of ‘True Lies.’ None of my coworkers knew what I was talking about, but I kept talking.

2) One day at the same coffee shop, on a day off, I was reading a book when I heard Dean Martin enjoying the shade and imploring his friends to drink the drink that he had made. I saw Marge Simpson dancing drunkenly on a ledge at Mr. Burns’s mansion singing the same song. I texted my brother with the news and he knew what I was talking about. I went back to my book remembering that that was the episode where the family shocks each other in electric chair therapy.

3) Not in a public place but on my record player (and actually last year), I was listening to Pavement’s ‘Slanted and Enchanted’ for the first time when I hit the beginning of “Perfume-V.” Suddenly I was between sketches on Human Giant with a brief bit of music taking us into the next piece of hilarity, probably a tale of intrigue in which the Illusionators attempt to cross a busy intersection blindfolded. No one was around to know what I was talking about. I consider it their loss.

Maybe this affliction of mine is a form of brainwashing. I have watched these movies and television programs so much that when I am in public and hear songs featured on their soundtracks I have no choice but to relive those scenes. It’s definitely a form of conditioning. My brain triggers a formulated response because movies and television are such a part of my life, past and present. I love music just as much, and when you put something I love together with something else that I love there will be a response worthy of the love I feel for both of the parties involved. I will smile, and I will tell all acquaintances within earshot or accessible via text messaging of the love I am feeling. Is it brainwashing if you like it? Probably. But I don’t care.

I don’t care because the people who used these songs in their respective scenes did not use these songs as a gimmick or as instant gratification to their fans. The people who used these songs did not use them in the same way that Zach Braff used the Shins for that scene in ‘Garden State.’

When I hear Dean Martin in public I don’t immediately search for more of his music and think of how much I love the Simpsons every time I hear him sing, nor do I think of how much Dean Martin changed my life. I think of how the show’s writers established early in the series that Marge can be a lush if given half a chance. When I hear the beginning of “Perfume-V” I definitely think of how much I enjoy Human Giant, but I always forget about “Perfume-V” until I hear it at that point on ‘Slanted and Enchanted’ because the entire album is worth listening to. Remembering “Perfume-V” on Human Giant is a momentary anecdote that passes as I fall back in love with the music.

I make these triangular connections of music, movies, and life because the people who made these movies went to careful lengths to choose the right song that works with a scene, and the music doesn’t dominate the scene. The music is necessary to the scene, but not in the same way that the Shins will change your life when Natalie Portman hands you her headphones. On one hand is a momentary remembrance of something that made me smile because it worked on multiple levels. On the other hand is frivolous sentimentality that belongs in an episode of The OC, probably a montage, probably involving people dramatically staring into space. My affliction is a refined affliction based on quality entertainment that I have involuntarily deemed worthy of random total recall. If you can wrap your mind around that you win this week’s grand prize. This week’s grand prize is respect.

That being said, this is not a bad movie or song to brainwash yourself with: