Those Songs You Can't Get Out of Your Head
Earworms--almost everyone experiences them, according to researchers. You probably have had a song stuck in your head no matter how hard you try to unstuck it!
I started thinking about this topic because an annoying jingle for Wayfair.com became lodged in my brain. I wasn't aware that I was even paying attention to the commercial, but Wayfair, you've got what I need, kept popping up.
Then, a week later, I started writing this post and could not remember it at all. I had not heard it lately on television so I lost it. Unfortunately, it came back!
Frequent repetition is one way songs enter our brain. I knew I had not been listening to pop music for some time when I saw a list of tunes that earworm studies reported as frequent offenders. For instance, I could not hum any of the titles listed that were by Lady Gaga--"Alejandro," "Bad Romance," "Just Dance," and "Paparazzi."
Another theory about earworms is that when you remember only part of a song, the brain fixates on completing it. We went on vacation with a friend who for two days whistled one part of "Send in the Clowns": But where are the clowns? Quick send in the clowns. . . .
Finally on day two, I jumped in: Don't bother they're here!
He had no idea what he had been whistling and irritating me.
Hear a beautiful version by Judy Collins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L6KGuTr9TI
The self-styled Dr. Earworm, James Kellaris of the University of Cincinnati states that certain songs excite an abnormal reaction in an individual’s brain and the brain tries to process it by repetition. Since all our memories and brains are different, it is no surprise that there is a huge variety in the earworms people report.
My thought on the unresolved song in the brain is to find the lyrics and/or listen to the song on YouTube. That doesn't work well at 2 a.m. so I tried making up lyrics to the parts I could not remember. Once I started thinking about earworms, songs that had plagued me in the past came back. I hate mindless lyrics like Crimson and Clover, over and over. And over and over and over again!
My thought on the unresolved song in the brain is to find the lyrics and/or listen to the song on YouTube. That doesn't work well at 2 a.m. so I tried making up lyrics to the parts I could not remember. Once I started thinking about earworms, songs that had plagued me in the past came back. I hate mindless lyrics like Crimson and Clover, over and over. And over and over and over again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4-NDc2jRmQ
Or what about
It's a small world after all, It's a small world after all. . . .
I don't want to know the rest of these lyrics! It did seem to help to make up inane lyrics to accompany these tunes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9YqCP_B7EU
Another strategy I use is to substitute another song. “Rockin’ Robin” is my standby. It probably works because I have to concentrate to remember the lyrics. After thinking about this strategy, I recently woke up with
Tweet, tweedle-lee-dee. Tweet, tweedle-lee-dee. Whoops!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvTnrQYRXdY#t=11
Viewing an image, hearing a word, seeing a person or being at an event can also trigger an earworm. A wedding, for instance, may remind you of the music at some other wedding. Researchers who were surveying people at the time of the Michael Jackson trial said there was a big increase in the number of Jackson earworms reported.
I hear the words respect and satisfaction emphasized in an uttered sentence and you know what happens!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAI_Nv3qWto
Daniel Levitin of McGill University thinks earworms are a natural outcome of evolution when remembering oral information such as what plants are poisonous was a necessity. One more piece of research—concentrating on a mental task such as crosswords, Sudoku or anagrams was found to be fairly successful in combating those pesky worms. If I haven’t overwhelmed you with research, a lot more can be found at the Earworm Project:
Have I infected you with an earworm? Or were you already afflicted?
Let us know your personal bedevilments!
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