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i need you now, tonight, and i need you more than ever

My little “Bonnie Tyler problem” is growing more acute. It’s been a week now. For a brief period yesterday I thought I’d had it licked – but I was making toast this morning and didn’t even realize I was singing Total Eclipse of the Heart until I was midway through the fourth line. Profanity ensued.

And now, gentle reader, I need your help.

I’ve tried repeatedly to dislodge the song but it has grabbed onto my subconscious like nothing since that 1979 photo of Kristy McNichol in short shorts. I’ve deployed the usual countermeasures: trying to sing other annoyingly catchy songs; trying to sing other annoyingly catchy songs from the same era (several people overheard me at Loblaws – does this mean I owe royalties to Kim Carnes?); theme songs; jingles; masturbation. Nothing’s worked. (With the benefit of hindsight, I see now that it was counterproductive to masturbate to the image of Bonnie Tyler.)

At this point I’d rather have just about anything else in my head, including a bullet. Plus now I’m starting to picture the song’s video as I sing. For those who’ve never seen it, the production is from an era when no video was complete without a literal interpretation of the song’s lyrics (the boys have actual “bright eyes”), 300 wind machines and just a tremendous amount of cocaine used in the brainstorming process:

“For this line of the song I see… dancing ninjas!”

“So we’ll move the flying altar boys to later then?”

“Right after the shirtless football players.”

So I’m desperate. This is my most distressing mental crisis since I sang Detroit Rock City all through Scout camp (to this day, Kumbaya reminds me of Ace Frehley). My eternal gratitude to anyone who can rid my neural pathways of this overwrought parasite of a song. Suggestions?

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