This morning I listened to Somebody Told Me* by The Killers at least 100 times. No, I didn’t play it over and over like a teenager listening to their favorite record – my brain played it in my head. It’s called an earworm, or stuck song syndrome, or sticky song. Earworms are a song or song fragment that involuntarily pops into your head and plays over and over and over. According to Scientific American, up to 92% of us get an earworm at least once a week. (1) Sometimes it’s a song you heard recently. Sometimes it just seems to come out of nowhere.
If you like the song playing in your head, you might understand why your brain repeats it. But when a song you don’t like gets stuck in repeat mode you wonder, “OMG, why does my brain keep playing that terrible song?”
Oliver Sacks, M.D., a neurologist who studies music and the brain, says, “(an earworm) is a special form of involuntary musical imagery which is out of control and can become quite unpleasant and intrusive.” (2)
Consider yourself lucky if that song only stays around for minutes or even hours. A few people have reported the same song sticking around for a year. Some researchers say you should see a doctor if you continually get earworms lasting over 24 hours. It may be a neurological problem. Others disagree.
So why do we get earworms? Music is powerful. Music helps us create new memories. (3) As toddlers we sang the ABC song to remember our ABCs. Jimmy Driftwood, Arkansas history teacher and folk singer wrote The Battle of New Orleans to help his students learn a piece of history. (4) If you are about my age (75) you might know the lyrics. I hope it doesn’t become your next earworm.
We all remember the lyrics from hundreds of our favorite songs. Sometimes when hubby and I are together with friends if a particular song lyric is mentioned, we all break out and sing it. We find it remarkable that we can remember song lyrics from 50 or 60 years ago and we can’t remember our next-door neighbor’s name.
Songwriters and jingle writers know some of the tricks to make their songs memorable. They call it the hook. Part lyric, part melody, it can be the song title. It often gets repeated throughout the song. (5) Google ‘songwriting hook tips’ and you’ll see pages of entries on how to write great hooks. Google ‘best songwriting hooks’ and you’ll get lists of them. I hesitate to mention any of these because I might give you an earworm, but these sticky songs include a famous song by each of these artists: Neil Diamond, Leslie Gore, and Heman and the Hermits. Interestingly, the 100 Greatest Hooks of all Time (6) lists two songs by the Killers, neither of which was my Somebody Told Me earworm. Also interesting is that it isn’t necessarily songs with a great hook that become earworms.
Earworms are a somewhat a mystery to psychologists and brain scientists. Oliver Sacks wonders if earworms are a phenomenon of the electronic age where we hear and stream music constantly. We’ll never know. It doesn’t seem like earworms were part of the conversation 100 years ago. The first English use of the term earworm as an unwanted brain tune is in Desmond Bagley's 1978 novel Flyaway. (7)
Dr. Tim Byron, University of Wollongong’s School of Psychology (Australia), focuses research on the way music interacts with memory, specifically earworms. Byron says, “This process is linked to memory activation; music can link to conscious memories," he said. "Experiences can trigger certain songs, they may be linked to a certain memory, or smell, or even a visual experience."
People wonder if it’s just the irritating songs that become earworms, but Byron’s research says even songs we like become earworms, we just tend to remember the irritating ones. (8) "If you are drawn to the song — happy or sad — you're less likely to be irritated by it, even if it is looping in your brain.” I’ve noticed that many of my earworms are songs I like – I just don’t want to hear them in an endless loop in the middle of the night.
There are several suggestions about how to remove an earworm.
It’s suggested that singing Happy Birthday, or a different song, all the way through will remove an earworm, but Dr. Byron said this might only encourage the new song to replace the previous earworm.
Some researchers theorize singing the song all the way through to the end may stop the earworm because they believe that your brain is just trying to fill in the gaps to ‘complete the task.’ That hasn’t seemed to work for me. I just repeat singing the entire Somebody Told Me song. Try singing the entire song of your next earworm and let me know in the comments if it works for you.
Another suggestion is to walk or exercise at a different tempo than the earworm. Akin to that is to engage in a different activity. Neither of these is a great suggestion if you get the earworm at 2 AM.
Byron believes when a song gets stuck in our head it compels our brain to sing and make noise. He says suggests using your mouth by chewing gum or repeating a sound such at “Ta Ta” can help. Of course, not only will you annoy anyone around you if you repeat Ta Ta – they might also think you are nuts. Chewing gum seems like a better option. Looks like I’d better add gum to the dozens of other things I keep in my purse, just in case. And if you see me chewing gum, you’ll know my brain is singing, Somebody Told Me.
Almost all the researchers say don’t try to get rid of the song deliberately by trying to control your thoughts. It doesn’t work and it just makes you more frustrated. Harriet Brown, author of “How do You Solve a Problem Like an Earworm” says, “In the long run, some experts say, the best strategy might simply be learning to enjoy the concerts in your head. I've been trying to identify, disrupt and interrupt my earworm for three decades, with no luck… I have come to think of it as the sound track for my life.” (9)
There is some good news about earworms. Dr. Pat Kanluan, Psychiatrist, says people who get frequent earworms probably have a great memory. (10) He also says hearing or singing certain songs frequently may help stimulate creativity. He doesn’t say which songs or where to channel this creativity. Maybe we should get together and make earworm jingles for commercials – we’d be rich!
References
* I used a song I think my readers won’t know so I won’t create an earworm.
Harriet Brown, How to Solve a Problem Like an Earworm, Scientific American, November 1, 2015
The Kennedy Center, Your Brain on Music,
Dr. Anne Fabiny, Music Can Boost Memory and Mood, Harvard Health Publishing, Feb 14, 2015
The Battle of New Orleans, Songfacts,
Stople, Andrea, How to Write Songs with Killer Hooks, takenote.
kid_id, 100 Greatest Hooks of all Time, rateyourmusic.com
Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki, The earworms you can't get out of your head, Australian Brodcasting.net, November 28, 2016.
Gabrielle Lyons and Nick King, Earworms – How we get them and how to shake them off, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, August 30, 2019.
Harriet Brown, How to Solve a Problem Like an Earworm, Scientific American, November 1, 2015
Pat Kanluan, M.D., Can’t Shake Off an Earworm? April 22, 2020.
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