I fell down a wormhole this week. Not quite literally, but pretty close. Let me explain. My Larson daily tear-off cartoon strip came up with one of his greatest hits on Wednesday. It was the one with a bird and a worm in its mouth showing a cutaway beneath the ground of an upended drum kit; the inference being that's how birds hear worms (the whole vibration thing).
The aforementioned wormhole led me astray with all sorts of forums and conversations including who came first - Larson or Dr. Worm by They Might Be Giants? Well that's not opinion, that's just counting1 - Larson 1993, TMBG 1998. Also, why would worms advertise precisely where under the ground2 they actually were (seriously!)? And then that took me down a David Bowie related path: some gadgie said if you listen to Dr. Worm and the melody in the couplet 'They call me Doctor Worm/Good morning, how are you? it's the same as Bowie's 'Because my love for you/Would break my heart in two' in Let's Dance. I didn't even have to play Bowie's 1983 smash hit single to check; you, like me, just know it to be true. It's embedded in our brains.
They Might Be Giants - Dr. Worm (1998)
1 ©James O'Brien.
2 In actual fact, the birds tap the ground to recreate the sound of rain, the worms then rise to the surface.