No. really. That’s the name of the song. By the English band Electric Light Orchestra, in 1974.

Which makes it the ultimate earworm song. It does what it set out to do.

Have a listen.

A bit hypnotizing, isn’t? Lulls you into relaxing. You are feeling sleepy, sleepy … and you will be muttering these lyrics for the next four days.

The lyrics — by Jeff Lynne — are key, of course. Deeply evocative for a pop song. And more than a little poetic.

Midnight, on the water

I saw the ocean’s daughter

Walking on a wave’s chicane

Staring as she called my name

(Ocean’s daughter? Who is that? Walking on a wave’s chicane? That’s way too obtuse for third-graders. And I for a long time thought they were singing “walking on a wave she came.”)

And I can’t get it out of my head

No, I can’t get it out of my head

Now my old world is gone for dead

‘Cause I can’t get it out of my head

Breakdown on the shoreline

Can’t move, it’s an ebbtide

Morning, don’t get here tonight

Searching for her silver light

(Refrain)

Bank job in the city

Robin Hood and William Tell

And Ivanhoe and Lancelot

They don’t envy me

Sitting ’til the sun goes down

In dreams the world keeps going ’round and ’round

The it concludes with the self-fulfilling buzz of the chorus … “can’t get it out of my head … can’t get it out of my head.”

I’ll say.

And what does it all mean?

I am not at all sure, but here is a description — a long one, but a convincing one — I found on the web. By someone whose handle is “unkkillit”.

(And it would be just like ELO, more than a little pretentious at all times, to write a 30-line song that requires several hundred words to describe it.)

For many of us this song is special. Especially if you’ve ever been infatuated with someone in your life and experienced the terrible desperation of “can’t get it out of my head”. The first line, “Midnight, on the water”, describes the setting, place and mood when love can easily be inflicted. The “ocean’s daughter” is Venus the goddess of love who was born from the waves. She is not the object of his infatuation but she is the cause of love occurring between people similar to cupid’s role in causing people to fall in love. It’s interesting how Jeff deliberately uses the word “chicane” instead of “she came”, because he’s not referring to the girl that he is in love with but rather this particular situation of love that makes one helpless. Chicane in this context means trickery, and the goddess of love, “walking on the wave”, uses her powers and one is tricked and falls into this helpless condition. In the next line, the goddess had called his name, a kind of random act and he fell choicelessly in love. Now he can’t get it out of his head. Jeff could have used the word “her” instead of “it”, but he uses the word “it” because again he is making a deliberate distinction between this song being about a particular girl and particular situation of love that is desperate. This song is about love’s situation.

This love is dire. It is so engrossing he can’t think or do anything else. He can’t move, he’s breaking down, his old world, the one he is familiar and comfortable with, is no more. He’s is struggling to get it out of his head and in to escape this miserable love condition, he is searching for her silver light. This means he’s looking for a way to appease the goddess so she may release him from his love trap.

Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot, they don’t envy me.’ This line is quite poetic and the pace it is shouted adds dimension to the song. The song is wonderful in the beginning and middle but anticipation keeps building and I always look forward to this line. All these men are great and fearless heroes. Time and time again they faced every kind of danger and countless times they’ve risked their lives and [faced] powerful adversaries. They walk this earth without fear. Except even they are powerless when it comes to love. Fight a dragon, no problem but face love’s desperation willingly, that requires a real hero. And for that reason, they don’t envy him.”

Got all that? We will have a test later.