Getting under your skin

"It's the time of the season when love runs high. In this time give it to me easy and let me try with pleasured hands to take you and the sun to promised lands to show you every one. It's the time of the season for loving."

"Well I saw her today at the reception, a glass of wine in her hand. I knew she would go meet her connection, at her feet was her footloose man. No, you can't always get what you want. No, you can't always get what you want. No, you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need."

"Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay. Oh I believe in yesterday."

"My world is empty without you, baby. My world is empty without you, baby. And as I go my way alone, I find it hard for me to carry on. I need your strength. I need your tender touch. I need the love, my dear, I miss so much."

"And now the end is here and so I face the final curtain. My friend, I'll say it clear, I'll state my case, of which I'm certain. I've lived a life that's full. I traveled each and every highway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way. Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way."

My friend Kristen and I were talking about the piped-in Muzak at the supermarket, and she said to me, "Imagine someone just speaking these thoughts to you without the music." Wow, I hadn't thought of that, but once I did, the plot seemed sinister indeed: Demonic propaganda that were simply spoken repeatedly in a monotone over loud speakers in the public square might be too blatant to be effective. But just put harmful philosophy to tunes by The Zombies, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Supremes, and Frank Sinatra, and people will eat it all up and call it entertainment.

It will become part of their thinking and decision-making, unawares. And not having noticed the wallpaper music while they shopped for bread and milk, they will believe they have come to their beliefs all on their own.