No Doubt the Mall has Music

By Timothy R Butler | Posted at 6:29 AM

For some reason, shopping at malls have a tendency to cause music to stick in my head. I'm not sure exactly why, but it has happened a number of times, such as here. Well, its happened again.

I'm not exactly the frequent mall patron, but I found myself in the mall several times over the past few weeks, including last week when I went to pick up a suit at the Men's Warehouse. The mall played No Doubt's “Don't Speak,” the chorus of which lodged itself in my head thereafter:

Don't speak
I know just what you're saying
So please stop explaining
Don't tell me cause it hurts
Don't speak
I know what you're thinking
I don't need your reasons
Don't tell me cause it hurts

I've never actually heard of No Doubt. I did hear that song sometime last decade when it was new, but I never paid attention to who it was from. Well, the next week, I was at Borders Books, Music and Cafe (which is an anchor tenant at the same mall) and another song lodged itself in my head, but this time, only the accompanying instruments — I couldn't recall the words, which was even more frustrating than having a song in my head to which I could recall the words. I happened to be on iTMS looking to see what No Doubt sounded like beyond “Don't Speak” and tried listening to a song called “Running.” As it turned out, that was the second song I heard in the mall.

Running, running
As fast as we can
I really hope we make it
(Do you think we'll make it?)
We're running
Keep holding my hand
It's so we don't get separated

If you're waiting for some kind of pithy conclusion, I confess I don't have any. I just found it interesting that (1) music seems more likely to be “sticky” to my brain at the mall and (2) in the last two or three weeks, I've heard multiple songs from the same band (which I was not familiar with) at the same mall that managed to get stuck in my head.

Anyone else have a song stuck in your noggin at the moment?