The clock hand was pushing past the midnight hour as I laid in bed waiting for the Sandman to claim me. Thirty minutes of waiting came up fruitless. I turned to one of my favorite remedies; listening to soft rock on the radio station KOIT 96.5 AM always seem to do the trick.

I was in my happy place near the end of England Dan/JF Conley’s I’d Really Love To See You; my mind had let go of all the daily worries. I was at my most vulnerable moment. Unconciousness was only moments away.

1:18 AM

I hear this filing into my empty head, breaking my trance:

Were no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do i
A full commitments what I’m thinking of
You wouldn’t get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling
Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

The catchy chorus repeated in my mind adnauseam. I was wide awake then. All thoughts of sleeping were gone. My sole purpose at that moment was to get rid of the tune in my head. I tried going through calculations, humming a different melody, and counting the indentations in the wall. Nothing worked.

I was finally able to get some sleep, thirty minutes later, when my body just shut down from fatigue with Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up set on repeat in my head.