Stephen King's 'Big Time' Love For This '90s Song Made His Wife Threaten A Divorce
Stephen King declared that he has a “big time” appreciation for Lou Bega’s 1999 hit “Mambo No. 5.”
His wife, however, appears to be far from a fan.
The horror author told Rolling Stone in an interview released Tuesday that his wife, Tabitha, “threatened to divorce” him over his passion for the song.
“I played that a lot. I had the dance mix. I loved those extended play things, and I played both sides of it,” King said. “And one of them was just total instrumental. And I played that thing until my wife just said, ‘One more time, and I’m going to fucking leave you.’”
King added that he was probably writing his time traveling novel “11/22/63,” which came out in 2011, at the time of the “Mambo No. 5” obsession.
In a 2009 op-ed for Entertainment Weekly on catchy songs, King wrote that the song “scored high on the this-makes-me-crazy meter” after he asked internet users to email him “their most dreaded earworms.”
“I waited until she was running errands, then played it... not once but several times. Because that’s the thing with earworms: They attract even as they repulse,” King wrote of playing a dance mix of the song.
“Put another way, you know you’ll only spread that rash by scratching it, but you can’t help it,” he continued. “Which explains why even now I feel this insane urge to play ‘Mr. Roboto’ by Styx…one…more…time.”
Elsewhere in his Rolling Stone interview, King named techno and disco music as the genres he listens to “a lot” as he writes.
He admitted to the publication, however, that he doesn’t listen to music as much during the writing process nowadays.
“I think it’s because I’ve slowed down a little bit, or the thought process is not as limber as it was when I was say 30, 35, that sort of thing,” King said. “But I still do listen to it when I polish, when I rewrite, and I listen to a lot of loud rock & roll.”
