A Shiny Nickel

Sometimes a song won’t leave you alone... it creeps into your head and plays and plays... and the more you try to forget it, the more it plays... louder.... and there’s nothing you can do but surrender and sing along...

Today as I was walking down the street, a song crept into my consciousness.

What song?

Playground In My Mind.

Remember it?

It was a top-ten hit, peaking at #2, in June 1973. I couldn’t remember the last time I heard that song, though I knew it's been decades.

When this old world is getting me down

And there's no love to be found

I close my eyes and soon I find

I'm in a playground in my mind

What made me think of it?

I wasn’t feeling down. I didn’t get a memo of love being lost. My eyes were open. I wasn’t in a playground.

But there it was playing loudly in my head.

Where the children laugh

and the children play

and we sing a song all-day

Then I found myself singing out loud.

My name is Michael

I've got a nickel

I've got a nickel shiny and new

I'm ginna buy me all kinds of candy

That's what I'm gonna do

I couldn’t remember the singer’s name. The more I tried to think of it, the more the song played repeatedly in my mind.

Then I remembered his name was Clint... Clint Holmes... a one-hit-wonder.

In the wonders that I find

In the playground in my mind

In a world that used to be

Close your eyes and follow me

And just as I reached home, I look down, and there on the sidewalk was a shiny nickel.

My name is Michael

I’ve got a nickel

I’ve got a nickel shiny and new...

Sometimes I think I'm going insane. 

I dare you to take a listen: