1 Comment Written by dmeemai on June 28, 2009 – 4:28 am

You’re just too good to be true.
Can’t take my eyes off you.
You’d be like Heaven to touch.
I wanna hold you so much.
At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I’m alive.
You’re just too good to be true.
Can’t take my eyes off you.

After watching a rerun of “10 Things I hate about you” last night- the classic 90’s teen movie that I’ve seen four times starring (the late) Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles -that is my current LSS.

Whoever coined the term LSS was clever. Amazing how more and more words and phrases are added in the English language over the years that never existed say 30 years ago. What’s more amazing is how fast it is spread around the world even before the Internet surge, so quick that over time it becomes part of everyday conversations and urban language. How does it get so widespread?

I’ve heard of LSS or the “last song syndrome” years ago yet before the phrase had a name we all have experienced it on occasion or for most people like me- on a regular basis! Last song syndrome is not a serious ailment; it is merely a complaint over a last song heard whereby the song is ‘trapped’ in our heads and we have difficulty erasing it so we end up singing, whistling or humming it over our heads or quite audibly over and over until we are so sick of the song and or the people around us are ready to zip our mouths with duct tape if we don’t stop.

We catch the LSS just about anywhere we go, while driving and listening to the radio; getting out of the supermarket, at work, from a concert, from watching television, even from another person. Wherever it is, it is the last song we hear and seems to be embedded in our brains at the time that we had to sing it. Don’t you hate it when cheesy commercial jingles get stuck though after turning the TV off and you’re going to bed? It is annoying having to sing it in our heads before dozing off and worse, it is still there when we wake up.

I must say it could get contagious at times. You hear the other person’s LSS and next thing you know, you’re singing it too!

Pardon the way that I stare.
There’s nothing else to compare.
The sight of you leaves me weak.
There are no words left to speak,
But if you feel like I feel,
Please let me know that it’s real.
You’re just too good to be true.
Can’t take my eyes off you.

Just how do we get rid of it?

I love you, baby,
And if it’s quite alright,
I need you, baby,
To warm a lonely night.
I love you, baby.

I read from Real Simple Magazine that the best way to snap out of it is to sing the song in its entirety or listen to the whole song again, to achieve completion. “If you can’t remember all the words or how it ends, rewrite the ending. Sometimes appending a Beethoven coda or even just ‘Shave and a haircut, two bits’ will do the trick,” says James Kellaris, Ph.D., a professor of Marketing at the University of Cincinnati, who studies why catchy tunes- called “earworms” – stick in your head.

Make something up and just finish the stupid song. If you still can’t , replace it with another song in your head. Listening to classical music, unfamiliar tunes or music without lyrics usually helps too.

Sometimes all those works for me, sometimes it doesn’t. If all else fails, you’re on your own because the thing is sometimes I simply enjoy singing my LSS! Like now. How do you deal with LSS?

Oh, pretty baby,
Don’t bring me down, I pray.
Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay
And let me love you, baby.
Let me love you.

Good luck erasing my LSS! “Can’t take my Eyes off you” from the brilliant Bob Gaudio and Bob Crewe who wrote the song in 1967 and popularized by the equally talented Frankie Valli, and has been covered by a good number of singers all over the world- my LSS is now passed on to you…