Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads that just won’t go away. They sneak into your subconscious. They are epic earworms that you find yourself humming uncontrollably, singing in the shower, or tapping the beat to with your foot or ballpoint pen when you should be working. Sometimes they even keep you awake at night. Whether they are current hits, one-hit wonders, movie soundtrack gems, holiday favorites, or songs from your youth, their catchy vocals, riffs, hooks, and choruses seem to linger for days.
Here, those songs find a home, no matter the genre. Here, those epic earworms are revisited, explained, and celebrated. Here, you may find the song that haunts you tomorrow. Here is today’s unescapable song of the day…and the story behind it.
Today’s Epic Earworm: KT Tunstall — “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree”
“Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” by KT Tunstall, courtesy of Relentless Records
Scottish singer KT Tunstall has had a long and celebrated career in Europe, but her success in the United States has been much more limited. The award-winning musician has had just one song crack the Top 20 in America, “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.” Tunstall’s bluesy ditty was released in early 2005 and reached #10 in her native Scotland. However, it didn’t take off in the U.S. until after Katherine McPhee sang the song on American Idol in 2006. The song turned Tunstall’s full-length debut album, Eye to the Telescope, into a global sensation. The album was certified platinum in the U.S. and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. It also earned Tunstall her only Grammy nomination.
Heart of Fantasy
A recurring theme throughout “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” is heart, or more specifically, Tunstall’s heart. The singer created a fantasy around the heart murmur she battled as a child. The line “My heart stops dead” was Tunstall’s narrator convincing herself that her heart felt betrayed and decided to just stop beating. The song is really about listening to one’s heart, even if it means tempting fate at times, as evidenced by the opening line “Well, my heart knows me better than I know myself, so I’m gonna let it do all the talking.”
The title for Tunstall’s epic earworm was inspired by a summer that the singer spent traveling in Greece on a moped earlier in life. During her adventures, she came across a big black horse rampaging through an olive grove. Years later, that memory became the basis for her first (and biggest) hit. Tunstall likes to perform the song solo, using a looping pedal to layer together all the parts.
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