The song remains the same.

Warning: The following post contains puns, which many consider the lowest form of humor.

I've heard them referred to as "song tumors." They can begin as comforting notions, yet evolve into our worst nightmares, our minds rebelling against themselves in a macabre dance of self-torture.

"Don't Stop Believin'", by Journey, is one of my favorite songs. It reminds me of a simpler time, an era when we bought records with airbrushed, futuristic cover art, sang along to every song on the album and then recorded it onto a cassette to listen to in the car. It's also held up over time; it doesn't sound gimmicky or dated since its initial release in 1981.

Fast forward thirty years. My fourteen-year-old daughter heard the song in the new hit series, "Glee," and decided she had a new fave. When a teenager makes this decision, it's a commitment, an obligation to download the song, "youtube" the song and listen to the song back-to-back-to-back-to-back ad nauseam. Our house was infected with "Don't Stop Believin'" for five consecutive days, meaning it was entrenched within the crania of four people for almost a week.

I'm talking about waking up in the morning, my brain reviving itself from a temporary tune respite, and instantly hearing, "Just a small town girl..." Now fully engaged and booted up, my gray matter compelled me to rhythmically eat Cheerios to the song, to tap the formica counter to the song, to sing the song to my car's turn signal metronome.

It got to the point where my nine-year-old would hear my savant Journey beats and simply say, "Dad. Journey. Stop."

"Oh, okay. Sorry."

Naturally, this wasn't the first number to dig its tentacles into my head. We've all had this happen, almost on a daily basis. Who hasn't been infected with "Since You've Been Gone-orrhoea," or "I Write the Song-chitis?" Which one of us hasn't come down with "Wind Beneath My Wing-worm", "Leaving on a Jet Plan-tar warts," or "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Goiter?" Then, of course, you could be stricken with a benign "Cyst-er Christian" or an "Achy Breaky Heart Arrhythmia." Okay, I'm done.

You get the point. And it's so understandable how loud, repetitive music is so effective in manipulating interrogation subjects into spilling their guts. After painting my tool shed last summer for four hours to the tune of "Livin' on a Prayer," I would have confessed to a fetish for Spanx thigh-highs.

I'm not sure it was a good idea to write about this subject. Oh no, there he is again...that city boy from South Detroit.