Saturday, December 19, 2009

This is the Song That Never Ends

"This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends..."

Getting a song stuck in your head is commonly referred to as an "earworm".
No matter how much you tilt your head to one side and shake to get it out, the effort is in vein.
For some, listening to the song helps. For others, the only cure is akin to sobering up: TIME.

For days on end, I'll have They Might Be Giants' "Birdhouse in Your Soul" stuck in my head. I won't hear it for weeks, months even, and there it will be. It got worse after I looked up the lyrics to fill in the blanks of what I didn't know. I've never been a particularly huge TMBG fan, but I'll be damned if I haven't heard that songs more times than I care to admit in an attempt to remove it from my brain.

My husband Kris finds himself with an REO Speedwagon earworm, in the form of "Take It On The Run". He absolutely can't stand Speedwagon, and yet I catch him bursting out "Heard it from a friend whoooooo...heard it from a fri-ennnd whooooo..."

Sometimes the earworm is warranted, due to it's inescapable over saturation in every aspect of our lives. I was able to avoid Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" for longer than all of my friends, knowing that once I heard it I would be doomed.

Why is it always the most annoying songs that get stuck in your head?
What are your earworms, and how do you cure them?

3 comments:

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  2. Great post it’s like "The final countdown" by Europe. That song plays in my head every morning and I don’t know why. Then there's "I saw the sign" by Ace of Base. I have not listened to those two songs in year and yet they are there.

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  3. Perhaps it's preparing you for a day of greatness? LOL
    And oh no, Ace of Base? That sucks bad. :(

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