In the 60s there was a cute song by Serendipity Singers, “Beans in my Ears.” (1) It starts with “My mommy said not to put beans in my ears.” Each verse progresses with variations of the” beans in my ears theme” ending with “I think all grown ups have beans in their ears.” It was meant as an allegory that people put beans in their ears when they don’t want to hear what’s being said. For us seniors, however, it is becoming more reality than allegory.
The lucky among us still have perfect hearing. They probably didn’t attend rock concerts, play heavy metal at volume 11 out of 10 on their earbuds, or encounter high-decibel noise like the subway or the dreaded leaf blowers. The rest of us seem to be on a scale of sometimes can’t hear to needing hearing aids.
Hearing is a complex thing. Sound goes into your ear and through some process in your brain until it ‘tells’ you what you heard. During this process, your brain makes interpretations based on your past experience and, without your realizing it, your brain might have twisted the words. It’s like an internal telephone game.
Our hearing process can lead to misinterpretations. My favorite song misinterpretation is the mishearing of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise” as “There’s a Bathroom on the Right.” Hubby and I sing the song that way now. Another famous mishearing of a song, as noted on USA Today (2), is “Doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not” for “Doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not” from Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer. Finally, there’s “Rock the Cat Box” for Rock the Casbah.
There’s actually a term for this mishearing: Mondegreen . a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning.
I don’t think hearing is always the issue. I’m convinced that people on TV shows talk more quickly than they used to. It seems like dialog flies at breakneck speed and even though I heard the words, the speaker is on her next sentence before my brain processes the first. At least that’s my theory. Please tell me it’s not my brain slowing down.
Closed captioning is a godsend. We watch a lot of foreign TV shows. By foreign, I mean non-American: British, Australian or Caribbean Island-type shows. For many of these shows, the accent is hard for us to understand so we turn on closed captioning. A lot of my friends also use closed captioning.
And thank heavens for the remote reverse button. “Run that back,” I ask my husband when I didn’t catch what the character says. Sometimes we run it back multiple times and still don’t understand what the character said: we give up.
Of course, there are times when the beans in your ears allegory really applies. There’s a joke: The reason why women talk so much is they have to say everything twice for their husband to hear it. Or maybe three or four times. There’s the Eric Larson Cartoon “what we say to cats…they hear.” They hear nothing. Maybe my husband is really a cat.
What’s interesting is that now many of earbuds today look like beans, Was the ‘beans’ song, popular in 1964, foreseeing the future or did it influence how ear buds are designed? A review for the Samsung Galaxy ear buds, “Good beans, No Compromises,” compares the buds to beans “the Galaxy super unique design looks like, well, beans.”
Samsung Galaxy ear bud review: Good Beans, No Compromises
My ear buds are noise cancelling so I can’t hear people talking to me when I have them in my ears. I know I can tap them a certain way to cancel the noise cancelling, but I haven’t figured that out yet. “I can’t hear you friend; I’ve got beans in my ears.”
Epilogue
While I’m poking fun at hearing loss, it’s not a joking matter. Studies show that hearing loss can lead to dementia and isolation. Hearing loss impairs communication and social interactions. It can lead to social isolation.(3) We have a friend who sometimes avoids social gatherings because he is so frustrated at not being able to participate in the conversation.
A 2020 Lancet commission report that lists hearing loss as one of the top risk factors for dementia. According to John Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, if you have hearing loss, it can make the brain work harder, forcing it to strain to hear and fill in the gaps. That comes at the expense of other thinking and memory systems.(4) Hopkins mentions a study that will be completed in 2023 that should provide definitive results on whether treating hearing loss will reduce the risk of cognitive decline. “In essence, we’ll know whether the use of hearing aids can potentially reduce brain aging and the risk of dementia.” (5)
Hearing loss is more than a nuisance. It can impact all parts of our life.
References
A later version of the “beans” song, by Pete Seeger, was an anti-Viet Nam war song. see Antiwar Songs
Dinges, Tony, Hilarious misheard lyrics, from 'Sweet dreams are made of cheese' to 'Excuse me while I kiss this guy, 'USA Today July 2, 2020
Aishwarya Shukla, MPH, etal, Hearing Loss, Loneliness, and Social Isolation: A Systematic Review, March 10, 2020 NIH National Library of Medicine
Hearing Loss and the Dementia Connection, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Nov 12, 2021,
Can Hearing Loss Lead To Dementia? Cleveland Clinic April 12, 2022
Frank R. Lin, MD PhD1 and Marilyn Albert, PhD2, Hearing Loss and Dementia – Who’s Listening? NIH, National Library of Medicine Aug 1, 2015
Hearing loss leading to Dimentia is good to know and very logical. Gives a strong incentive to have you hearing checked and get hearing aids if necessary.