JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: There’s been a lot of talk in the news the past few months about brain worms (yuch!!) but I want to steer the conversation in a different direction. You might say I want to bring it right round baby, right round, like a record baby right round round round.
Did I ear worm you?
Some of us are more susceptible than others, but everyone gets a tune stuck in their head once in a while. Honestly, I’m constantly humming or singing two bars of the last thing I heard in a show/ Alexa streaming/ an ad. Sometimes I wake up with a song already going in my head - what’s up with that? Is there some truth to the old conspiracy theory about radio receivers in dental fillings?
There are songs that for some reason or another seem destined to become earworms. Karma Chameleon. Oklahoma. Pretty much anything by Shakira. Then there are others that are more tailored to an individual. Lacking any other input, for instance, I will hum phrases from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro Overture. I will do this over and over and OVER again, something I don’t notice at all, but, sadly, anyone around me will experience. I have to be very alert when traveling by train because of this.
How about you, Reds? Are you afflicted by ear worms? What tunes are your triggers?
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am, although probably not as much as more musical folks. I have been watching The Voice this season for the first time in a couple of years (Adam Levine is back as a coach, yay!) and a recent contestant–from Dallas, no less–sang a gorgeous version of Dream a Little Dream of Me and I’ve had it stuck in my head ever since!
LUCY BURDETTE: This mostly happens to me around Christmas. There are a few truly dreadful holiday songs that get stuck in my head if I hear them. I won’t say the whole thing out loud for fear of reactivating for me or for you–but hint, Mommy and Santa Claus. And anything to do with those blasted chipmunks!
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, isn't it so funny how this happens to all of us? Because: It’s a small world after all. AHHHHHHHH why did I type that?
Once I started singing Super Trouper in the car when Jonathan was driving me to the airport for book tour, but I don;t know all the words, so I would just sing the first two lines, over and over, and finally Jonathan said: honey, do you know the REST of the song? Which I did not.
Don't get me started on Kars for Kids. (Which I think I read somewhere, was composed specifically to stick in your head.)
And, news you can use, I also heard that if you have an immovable earworm, start singing Jingle Bell Rock, and that will erase it.
JENN McKINLAY: LOL. I’ll get you for that ear worm, Hank! Like Julia, I sing all the time without realizing it. Hub does, however, and frequently suggests I change up my top 40 hits, which inexplicably include Bobby McGee, Shake It Off, and Here Comes the Sun. No idea why.
RHYS BOWEN: I think I’m the queen of the earworms. I hum all the time when I’m concentrating on something (but not when I’m writing). Since I sing in a church choir it’s often one of the hymns we are practicing that’s stuck in my head. If not I find that what I’m humming/singing has to do with what I’ve been talking or thinking about. Disputing some statement in the news? I find myself singing “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”
But the writer of Kars for Kids should be hung, drawn and quartered. Ditto the writer of It’s a Small World.
HALLIE EPHRON: Ear worms R us, too. For the longest time the theme for Masterpiece Theatre was stuck in my head. In competition with Shake It Off. And, of course, I am constantly Defying Gravity… quite inspirational.
It’s so nice to be able to “watch” TV these days and mute the commercials. Katy bar the door.
This doesn't happen to me too often, but songs like "Small World" definitely get stuck in my head . . . .
ReplyDeleteGaaaahhh!
DeleteAnd right back at you....Baby Shark do do do do do do...
(Susan D)
That's the real mark of an ear worm - just the mention of the title or a verse will set it in your head!
DeleteThese are delightful - and scary! I'm in there with the rest of you. One of mine was mid-hum when the conference elevator doors opened yesterday and I almost treated everybody to, "Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?" Here Come the Sun is a fave, as is the refrain, "Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?" Lately on WBUR there's an NPR ad about donating your car, and the persons says, about the news, "We'll take you there." Of course I launch into song. Hugh's frequent response is, "No singing." ;^)
ReplyDelete(I think he's just jealous because he can't carry a tune...)
DeleteI'm sure that's it, Edith. :-)
DeleteI actually remember when that Dead or Alive song came out and was a hit single. Of course, after that, pretty much everything else that was mentioned I don't or haven't listened to so they don't become earworms.a
ReplyDeleteI might hum along to songs I hear on the radio when I'm at work (or badly sing along if I'm alone at work or in the car) but nothing really comes to mind that just pops into my head out of nowhere that I sing or can't get out of my head.
Ahh...the benefits of listening to songs that are 24 minutes (Dream Theater's "Octavarium") or 59 minutes (Fates Warning's "A Pleasant Shade of Gray") long....you enjoy the journey the whole way through but they're not writing the next Kars for Kids jingle to drive you insane.
Remember when "Happy" by Pharell came out? Aarrrg!
DeleteI still love Happy!
DeleteJay, you calling Kars for Kids a jingle makes me realize how few of them we have now. Back in the days of broadcast TV, everyone could sing along to ads for McDonalds, Coke, Alka-Seltzer, etc. Not so much in our fragmented media environment.
DeleteOscar-Meyer wiener and Ipana toothpaste, for example.
DeleteAn ex-fiance used to say that to me, Edith: "No singing". Killjoy. That's the reason Steve is an ideal road trip companion. He is tone deaf, so he doesn't mind me singing to the oldies, even if I don't remember all the words. I'll have to remember that about him, next time he does something infuriating. LOL
ReplyDeleteMany times I've had a single earworm for weeks, which is crazymaking. (Hunh, autocorrect accepted that word.) But I've found that instrumental music doesn't trigger it as much, and if it does, the lyrics, if there are any, don't transfer. Knock wood. Lately, I've been listening to this amazing Bridgerton collection from the show. Many groups' pop songs end up being danced to in quadrillions or whatever at balls in every episode, and the resulting cello and piano music is so luscious. The piece on right now is by Coldplay, but it's hauntingly lovely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmqXEXJBoog
I love the Bridgerton instrumental music, Karen, and I love the music director's explanation of why they did arrangements of pop hits - because the late 18th/ early 19th century music people were dancing to WERE the "pop hits" of the day.
DeleteThere are so many brilliant bits to that show.
DeleteI am very susceptible to ear worms! Like Rhys, I sing in a church choir, so the hymns or anthems we work on there frequently get stuck in my head. Other than that, it is often 70's rock songs. I had to laugh when Edith mentioned "Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?" from "25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago, as that one frequently plays in my head, too. The Moody Blues "Nights in White Satin" also shows up a lot. Fortunately, my husband seems pretty tolerant about it -- possibly because he is similarly disposed.
ReplyDeleteSusan, my husband didn't sing, but he could listen to the same song over and over again, which drives me crazy. (That's an odd thing when you consider how I can hum the same thing over and over again, isn't it?) Anyway, I recall one road trip to the family's for Thanksgiving when he played his tape of Alice's Restaurant so many times I threatened to toss it out the window. Sigh.
DeleteWhile on a recent trip to Trader Joe's, the manager cranked up the muzak and there we all were, dancing around the dairy department to "White Rabbit" ("Go ask Alice when she's ten feet tall"), loving every minute.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE THIS!
DeleteDepending on the playlist, I often dance while grocery shopping!
DeleteI am also a grocery-aisle dancer!
DeleteThere are two car ads played over and over in Canada with really horrible songs taken from pop culture. On top of going round and round in my head, I have no idea what the words are, so I have random words causing me to circle the drain. “Blue river is the place for you” – I have no idea what the song is and will not google it. Arghhh! Don’t even think of a song from Les Mis…
ReplyDeleteThis is one reason why I listen to audiobooks. While listening, it distracts my feeble brain. I also have to turn on the radio and listen to drivel to distract me back to sleep when I get up from a dribble in the middle of the night. I wonder if my brain is really smart or really dumb, or just really programmable?
Margo, I listen to "Ambient Noise" on Alexa to get to sleep, so no, your brain isn't dumb or programmable. For some of us, the absence of some sort of sound just leaves an opening for thinking, which is the last thing we want to be doing at 3AM!
DeleteFor almost two weeks now it has been Walk Away Renee, a song I always liked but I am now sick to death of it. However, I really don't want to replace it with something much worse. And, yes, Julia, I too wake up with a song in my head - why is that?
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for Walk Away Renee, Judi - not!
DeleteOh, God, now I've got Walk Away, Renee in my head.
DeleteEar worms? Not too often, mostly those X'mas songs at the ebd of the year.
ReplyDeleteBut I am a huge ABBA fan and I do know all the lyrics to "Super Trouper". Hope that song doesn't stick to my brain today!
ABBA wrote some of the most amazingly "sticky" music ever, didn't they, Grace? I love how at weddings I've been to, when the DJ plays an ABBA song, everyone from age 10 to 90 gets up to dance.
DeleteYou’ll have to teach them to me, Grace!
DeleteI (finally) figured out the bluetooth connection between my car and phone and can now listen to my nephew's album when running errands or sitting in my car waiting for school pickups, etc.--and I'm always humming/singing parts of those songs around the house (Flora).
ReplyDeleteIs it the album belonging to your nephew, Flora, or the album created by him? If the latter, you can consider your humming and singing to be free publicity for him!
DeleteYes! Particularly the waking up with a song in my head. I’ve been reading NEGATIVE GIRL by Libby Cudmore, which got me listening to The Replacements, so it’s been The Last stuck in my head for 2 weeks.
ReplyDeleteAnd then suddenly, after two weeks, a song will be gone. What on earth causes that?
DeleteFor me, it's often hymns, especially the ones I've known since childhood. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that we had sung "How Firm A Foundation" the previous week. My fellow parishioner asked me how I remembered that--well, it had been stuck in my head all week.
ReplyDeleteGillian, I ear worm ferociously on Easter hymns. I will be singing "Come Ye Faithful Raise the Strain" the entire month of April.
DeleteSometimes I'll hear a word or phrase and for some reason Bob Dylan's words will pop into my head. Like "weatherman" ("you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows uhhum...) or "jump down the alleyway, looking for a new friend," ... maybe it's because I know the words I can go on for awhile.
ReplyDeleteIt's fascinating what can trigger an ear worm, Anon. Just reading something or hearing a similar-but-different tune.
DeleteCount me in as another person who is ultra-susceptible to earworms. That might be the reason I can still sing all the words of the Patty Duke Show theme. The earworms change frequently, depending on what I've heard lately, but one that hasn't budged is the theme from M.A.S.H. My husband and I used to have the show on during dinner in his later years, and although he passed away six years ago, that darned tune is still with me, especially when I wake up during the night. And thanks (?) for reminding me about Kars for Kids--arrgh!
ReplyDeleteI think some of these things might be hereditable, Margie - and I don't mean the propensity for ear worms. I know the lyrics to the Patty Duke Show which went off the air when I was five. Did I get them from my mom singing them? (She would also get hooked on song fragments.) I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen the show!
DeleteOh no! They laugh alike they walk alike sometimes they even talk alike ….or something like that…
DeleteI find tunes floating around in my head entirely unexpectedly (and sometimes coming out of my mouth!), But if I try, I can usually trace them back to something I just read or heard. Or even saw. We drive past a cornfield (yes, we have those in Switzerland), I don't really pay attention as we go by, but somehow thirty seconds later I'm humming, "The corn is as high as an elephant's eye..." Or I read the words "a harvest moon" in a novel and find myself singing, "Shine on, shine on, harvest moon, up in the sky." I can trigger songs I haven't thought of in years this way, and it seems like a totally unconscious process. Our brains are WEIRD. Or at least, mine is!
ReplyDeleteThe same thing happens to me, Kim, and it's fascinating. Now I'm curious to know if there's ever been any scientific studies on ear worms and song recollection.
DeleteAlways, always! My mother used to do it, too, and it drove me nuts. Now I do it. And so it goes—que sera, sera. :-)
DeleteEar worms at bedtime are the worst because mine always seem to be tunes Richard Simmons (RIP) would choose to start his workout. I have to muscle them out with Erik Satie's Gymnopédie. Sometimes the songs blend, and that's the stuff of nightmares!
ReplyDeleteHumming runs in my family. I have wonderful memories of my aunt the nun humming while baking her famous magic bars or barreling down streets in midtown Manhattan. My daughter and I both hum while baking but we leave the driving in NY to others.
Mary, you have my sympathies. I can't imagine worse music to wind down to than a Richard Simmons workout!
DeleteKars for Kids: UGH! Get out of my head!
ReplyDeleteI don’t know why certain songs pop into my head and stay there. I rarely listen to the radio. Some of the songs are from TV programs from the fifties and sixties. How about the theme song from Mr Ed? (Okay, now I’ll be humming or singing it indefinitely.)
I’m an ABBA fan, and right now I’m humming one of their songs, thanks to today’s blog!
For days now I’ve been singing to myself a particular hymn. I don’t know how it showed up, because we haven’t sung that particular hymn for a few months.
I like to listen to music when I’m cleaning the house or crocheting. It needs to be instrumental music though, because lyrics distract me from what I’m doing.
DebRo
I like to have on classical music when I work, DebRo, because words distract me as well. As to Mr. Ed, I'm pretty sure the theme songs from the 50s and 60s were genetically engineered to take up valuable space in our brains until we die.
DeleteMy earworms change, thank God! Yesterday, for no apparent reason, it was Ernest Tubb singing I'm Walking the Floor Over You. Maybe I heard Frank upstairs and that triggered it. Earlier today it was a piece of a hymn, but now I don't remember what. I guess it will not be today's earworm.
ReplyDeleteOh, Pat, that makes me think of one of my frequent earworms: Patsy Cline's Walkin' After Midnight. When I sing it, I'm hearing it in Patsy's voice, which is very nice!
DeleteNot sure if "ear worm" applies to me since I am deaf. I do not wear my cochlear implants 24/7.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fascinating difference, Diana. Do you ever get phrases or thoughts repeating over and over in your head? Or is this a phenomenon triggered exclusively by sounds? And if so, why would brains be wired for that?
DeleteVisual images can repeat over and over in my head like the drawing of a globe turning around during the news clips between Saturday morning cartoons when I was a young child. Regarding phrases, there are times when a phrase resonates with me after reading a book.
DeleteP.s. it would be interesting to see if this is a phenomenon triggered by sounds, Julia.
DeleteThat's interesting, because I never experience recurring visual images. It sounds like the same brain activity, filtered through different senses.
DeleteDefying Gravity changed my life many many years ago—maybe 10? It helped me make a big decision, so it is more anthem than ear worm to me.
ReplyDeleteHowever. I would not say the same for “Popular” which I am trying to erase from my brain.
Hank ~ I wonder if the song "Popular" churns up negative energy and memories of the time those school bullies put your photo upside down in a publication. An appropriate earworm song for those individuals today would be ~ "If They Could See Me Now". Ha!!! :-)
DeleteAww..thank you SO much! (ANd yes, I love that song...xoxo)
DeleteHank, we should do a conversation about songs that changed our lives!
DeleteWhen my bro-in-law had a radio show about the history of music and music artists; specifically, rock n' roll from the 60's, 70's and 80's, I called in to his show and we briefly talked about earworms and what we thought caused them. A Harvard study once hinted at those who suffer from OCD have more than their fair share of earworms on "autoplay". Oh boy...I'd rather go with the idea that some songs often connected to certain memories may trigger earworms. There are specific songs that no matter how many times I hear them I tear up and never tire of hearing them. However they never seem to show up as earworms. I, too, often wake up in the morning with a tune already cranking in my head that may stick around for days...everyday and all day. Today I work up with the song "Chances Are" by Johnny Mathis. I wonder how long he'll hang out with me. :-)
ReplyDeleteEvelyn, that makes me think of how I sometimes get a song stuck in my head because I've been thinking about a person. My mom LOVED Johnny Mathis, and sometimes I hum his songs after I've been remembering her.
DeleteI need to make noise while the office phone, that goes through my computer, hooks up (or whatever the technical term is) and I make random noise until some abstract tune emerges. It's usually some hymn because I, too, sang in the choir but once I recognize the tune, I find I'm out of season. "Forty Days and Forty Nights" is a Lenten hymn but I find myself humming it in November. I hum Christmas in June.
ReplyDeleteI do thank who were mentioned Oklahoma - overcast, dreary morning in Sonoma County and I got "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" opening stuck.
me, too!
DeleteOh, that's a sticky one...
DeleteK for K should be banned from even mentioning since it is so obnoxious. I’m not sure whether it’s the song itself or the annoying people who can’t sing. I listen to the radio a lot and it seems to be played about every 10 minutes. Some versions are worse than others. If I get to the radio fast enough I turn it down until the commercial is over.
ReplyDeleteI heard or read somewhere that there was going to be an audition for a new group. It didn’t indicate what or when. Even though it’s so annoying, it does get peoples’ attention so it’s doing what it’s intended to do.
When I’m out walking I frequently will be singing (not out loud ) to something relevant to the time of day or month like June is busting out all over for that month, tra la it’s May from Camelot for May.
I am also fairly new to many religious pieces and have found them showing up in my walking repertoire and I have no idea why they appear when they do since I usually didn’t even know that I had learned them.
I do that seasonal singing, too, Anon! "Try to remember, the kind of September," etc.
DeleteI can thank The Voice again for this week's earworm--two contestants sang a version of Loggins and Messina's Danny's Song. "Even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you, honey, and everything is gonna be all right..." Now I think that may be replace by Defying Gravity. Thanks, Julia!
ReplyDeleteThe only way to dislodge one earworm is with another, Debs!
DeleteOh, earworms. My husband loves the songs of his youth...and we are talking junior high years, late-night super-powered radio stations. I don't get the appeal; it wasn't his favorite time of life. I didn't like the music even back then, but he likes it in the car and do I have earworms? The Shirelles, the Platters, The Penguins, Orbison, Ronettes....Anyone else old enough remember that era, before The Beatles and Simon& Garfunkel came on the scene?
ReplyDeleteTriss, I don' think it's favorites, it's something about the song itself that gets stuck in your head. I can promise you "Jingle Bell Rock" isn't even my fave tune at Christmas time, let alone in March.
DeleteWhoever mentioned "Jingle Bell Rock" is the winner - I've been singing it non-stop since this morning!!!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of jingles, because I can look up the setlists of shows a band has played prior to the show I'm seeing, I know that at the end of the first act of the Dream Theater show they play that "Let's all go to the Lobby" jingle that used to play at intermissions of movies. A nice touch for the intermission before Act 2 of their concert set.
ReplyDelete