Feelin' It

 This past Sunday I awoke with a song in my head. This happens somewhat frequently, but in this case it wasn't precisely a song so much as a jingle. A commercial jingle. I started singing to my wife's confused awakening: "Feelin' Seven Up, I'm feelin' Seven Up." Again, the limitations of a jingle compared to that of a full-length song is that lyrically I could only loop back and repeat how I was feeling, which happened to be Seven Up. 

I can only imagine where this earworm found its way into my Sunday morning, but I suspect it could have been repeat viewings of Alex Cox's Repo Man, which features a scene early where that little bit of pop (pardon the pun) culture is used to affix a level of suburbia to the viewer so from there, all manner of craziness can ensue. For what it's worth, in that moment, Kevin remembers far more of the lyrics than I did on Sunday morning. 

Then I found myself faced with a mild dilemma. I had no idea from where the name "Seven Up" came. So I asked Google, which is kind of surrender for me, but it was Sunday morning, as I have mentioned prior, and I wasn't going to spend the entire day wondering. I was presented with two similar answers, the first being that it described the seven ingredients found in the recipe for the soft drink. The second was that it came from the atomic number of lithium, which was at one time a key ingredient in Seven Up. 

What?

For the majority of my life I have been privy to the "secret ingredient" of Coca-Cola: Cocaine. Long before the sugar and caffeine content was considered the source for the pep one might enjoy from a bottle of Coke, there was an addictive substance in America's favorite soda pop. Concerns about this ingredient caused it to be removed from the family recipe in 1903. 

It wasn't until 1948 that lithium was removed from the Seven Up formula. Up until that time, it was marketed as a mood-stabilizing soft drink with "health benefits." Seven Up was introduced just weeks before the stock market crashed in 1929. Considering Prohibition was still in full swing at that time here in the United States, I'm guessing a bottle or two of Seven Up might have come in handy for those who had just lost their life savings. 

All of this because I woke up on a Sunday morning leaking commercial jingles. And I wonder if we could convince the folks at MAHA to switch our fluoride in our water supply for lithium. "It's a feeling, a lift, and a rhythm in your step." Feelin' Seven Up.