Last Updated on February 1, 2025 by Tom Kane
There’s a song Tom Jones used to sing (clue’s in the title) and as a kid I got to listen to it, a lot, on the radio. Usually on the BBC on something called ‘Workers Playtime’ which was a radio programme broadcast by the BBC during World War II and intended as a morale booster for industrial workers. I sort of grew up with it as I was born in 1955 and the final broadcast was in 1964. It was broadcast at lunchtime, three times a week, live from a factory canteen somewhere in Britain.
So it’s not surprising that I have a lot of sixties songs floating around in my head, as well as 70s songs as I was a staunch listener of Radio 1 on the BBC listening to those classic radio broadcasters like Tony Blackburn, who is still going strong on Radio 2 and the wonderful, but now sadly departed, Johnny Walker. And of course watching Whispering Bob Harris on The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC TV back in the 70s.
There, that’s the background preamble over, now to get to the point.
As you can see, music has been a big part of my life and I quite often wake up in the morning and I have a song in my head. Could be anything from the Troggs to The Beatles or The Who. On Friday morning, that’s Friday 10th January 2025, I woke up to Tom Jones singing It’s Not Unusual. And indeed it’s not unusual for songs to BING into existence in my head and disappear by lunchtime. But not on that Friday. Tom Jones went on and on and on all day. And as in the case of many of these songs, I didn’t particularly like the song and I’m not and never have been a fan of Tom Jones.
Saturday morning dawned and Tom Jones had left the head (that’s head as in round thing on my shoulders, not an Americanism for toilet) and I was music free. By lunchtime it was time for a sandwich and to listen to Tony Blackburn’s Sounds of the Sixties on the BBC Sounds app. On went the laptop attached to the big TV and out boomed Tony’s voice saying good morning and the first song he played was, It’s Not Unusual by Tom Jones.
Now, here’s the real point to this blog piece and it’s a little spooky, especially to me who experiences this phenomenon regularly.
I have a song in my head and sometimes, on the very next time I listen to the radio (which is several times a week and can be BBC’s Radio 2 or Boom Radio, that very same song comes on either as the first song or early in the show. This happens on a fairly regular basis. Either I can predict what’s about to be played on any given radio show, or it’s pure coincidence. Either way, this happens so regularly I often wonder if it happens to anyone else. I doubt it’s supernatural in any way, more likely it’s something called The Frequency Illusion. Once you have a song in your head, it can seem to pop up on the radio or TV more often because you’re primed to notice it.
But, as I said at the beginning, It’s Not Unusual – It’s Simply Unbelievable.
Copyright © Tom Kane January 2025
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