the worst

Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader is following me.

It's no exaggeration to say that I hate this song. I hate this song more than any other song I've ever heard. It infuriates me to the point that I will leave a shop if their in-store radio starts playing the song, and if it comes on when I can't just leave (because I'm in a restaurant or whatever) then I will stop the conversation and put headphones in, or sit there with my fingers in my ears like a small child. I have developed such an antagonistic relationship with this song that I cannot listen to it all the way through without having a minor but genuine breakdown.

Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader is the worst song ever written. The plinky intro hits at just the right frequency to make me twitch, the guy sings as though someone is trying to shove a Pot Noodle up his nose, and every single line rhymes with every single other fucking line. Light rhymes with bright rhymes with might rhymes with fight rhymes with delight until I start gouging bits of flesh out of my palm to stuff up my ears with. I don't often hate things, but when I do, I hate them.

Once my friends and I were at a free local music festival, hanging around by the artists' entrance, and Toploader rocked up. They were rude to the autograph hunters. I shouted at them that I hope their record company dropped them, and after that it was years before I heard anything of Toploader again. The story of "Jen is an actual witch who put a curse on Toploader and it actually worked" made the rounds a fair few times at my school.

Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader seems to be having a resurgence, and for the life of me I can't understand why. In the last two weeks I've heard it in shops, cafes, and even in my therapist's office.

"Oh God, I hate this song, I hate this song, I hate this song," I said through clenched teeth as the opening plink started up. My therapist chuckled and went to fetch water. The closest I can get to describing how I felt when I realised that he wasn't going to switch it off despite being right next to it is that I possibly astral-projected out of my body in order to smack him across the top of the head. When he came back in and I begged him, almost at the point of tears, to please just turn the radio off, he looked confused. It's apparently not really normal to hate this song this much.

Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader genuinely interferes with my well-being and mental health. If I'm ever kidnapped and brainwashed, this will be the song they use to trigger me into doing whatever nefarious deeds they kidnapped me for. Hearing even part of this song can honestly ruin my day. And now it's following me. That song must be at least fifteen years old by now, there is no reason for anywhere to be playing it. It's not a classic that needs to be kept in rotation, it's a festering pile of plinky, nasal, twee, irritating shit, and it must be stopped. Maybe I should curse them again.