Alice Long (You're Still My Favorite Girlfriend)

In transit from one part of New Zealand to another and lacking any kind of iPod-enabling hook-up in our rented tan Nissan Pulsar, KrisDina and I bought a CD titled The Ultimate Bubblegum Collection at a gas station last winter. The shiny disc yielded the kind of upbeat tunes that the non-activists of the 60s filled their heads with. The music was catchy. Too catchy. Had we been lesser men, we might have gone mad and run that Pulsar off the road.

Cleaning off my desk last night, I had a chance to look at the jewel box again. I reviewed the track list on the back — a sample of text, I should add, that was printed in ever color you’d see on a jawbreaker — and noticed how very many of the titles used repeated words.

Here they are, so you too can know.

• Crazy Elephant - “Gimme Gimme Good Loving”
• Ohio Express - “Yummy Yummy Yummy”
• The 1910 Fruitgum Company - “One, Two, Three, Red Light, Red Light”
• Ohio Express - “Chewy Chewy”
• The Archies - “Sugar, Sugar”
• Blue Mink - “Wacky, Wacky, Wacky”
• Sweet - “Funny Funny”
• The 1910 Fruitgum Company - “Goody Goddy Gumdrops”
• Steam - “Na Na Hey Hey”

And, finally, I’ve decided to list one more song. It doesn’t repeat words in its title, but it merits a mention solely on the virtue of its inherent badness: “Groovin’ With Mr. Bloe,” by Mr. Bloe.