Why songs get stuck in our heads

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/12/cant_get_you_out_of.html

by fogus • 17 years ago

21 16 17 years ago

What about getting part of the song stuck in your head? I've got the "Bravestarr" theme running circles up there, but since I don't know the lyrics, it's just "Bravestarr... Bravestarr..." over and over.

I wonder if this is more or less common with songs designed to appeal to small children? "Bravestarr," for instance, is one of those late-80s toy commercial programs a la "Transformers." In my experience, the other easily stuck songs are mostly pop or classic rock, and almost never classical. Perhaps Knuth's "The Complexity of Songs" ought to be recommended reading for these researchers.

Edit: of course, if one of you has Rachmaninoff or Bach stuck right now, my point isn't so valid.

tjr2• 17 years ago

Hmm, well, I currently have Dave Brubeck's jazz tune "Mr. Fats" running through my head. That might be a little more complex than most pop, but maybe not quite Rachmaninoff.

pohl• 17 years ago

It might also depend on the musical experiences of the person. (Edit: I finally got the article to load, and this is essentially what it's saying, I guess.) I can easily get fugues by Bach or Shostakovich fugues stuck in my head, or Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs), but I've been a student of music. For example, I had this stuck in my head, and I can - in my mind - hear this all the way through:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgre8dqZYa8

But what always gets me the most, it seems, are doomsday-calibre earworms like We Built This City or It's a Small World Afterall.

tjr2• 17 years ago

It's a Small World Afterall

Argh, no! I suddenly find myself transported back to 1986 watching the Disney Channel for the first time.

Which is another interesting phenomenon in itself, that hearing a piece of music can bring back a surprisingly wide range of in-depth memories related to previous times hearing the music. I've often wondered if this could somehow be harnassed on purpose, to help people, say, prepare for exams.

aaronblohowiak• 17 years ago

I think it is harder to have more complex tunes stuck in your head. I will sometimes recall fondly shotakovich (symphony 11, movement 3 usually) in my head for about a half hour or so, but that is nothing compared to the unrelenting mind-invasion that old-time (traditional appalachian folk) tunes have.

Regardless of the individual variance in the complexity of the "earworm", one of the very interesting things is this interplay between short-term auditory memory and the loop being replayed. It will be even more interesting to see if their are ways to exploit this to effectively keep more things in working memory.

blogimus• 17 years ago

"Come Sail Away." But it only lasts for 37 seconds.

On a more serious note, it would be interesting to find out how many "earworms" (read the blog entry) are viral (almost all, most, few,...). Sing a bit and get it stuck in someone else's head.

nollidge2• 17 years ago

Or you could just mention the title. Thanks a lot :)

nollidge2• 17 years ago

Title's a little misleading. From the article:

"...the reason why such tunes keeping buzzing around our conscious mind is still a mystery."

ars• 17 years ago

Title's a lot misleading. It doesn't answer 'why' in the slightest, it just mentions that earworms exist, and that's about it.

Note that the article itself does not have a misleading title. To the submitter: please don't editorialize titles.

ZitchDog• 17 years ago

I can't remember where I first heard this, but I've always been able to get songs out of my head by singing them like Bob Dylan. I don't have to actually sing them out loud, but if I change the voice and cadence of the singer to Bob Dylan, the song goes away.

If it's an instrumental song, however, I'm screwed.

john_oshea• 17 years ago

Do you like Bob Dylan, or is that a form of aversion therapy?

Have you tried "Bob plays harmonica" for the instrumentals?

RiderOfGiraffes• 17 years ago

Four words: Smoke on the Water.

More often, though, I get a Bach Fugue - they can last for days. If I'm really serious about removing an "earworm" I recite poetry, ad I've specifically memorised a few poems for that purpose. It was one of my earliest "Mind Hacks".

joshkaufman• 17 years ago

Strange but true: James Kellaris, one of my marketing professors from college, is the guy who coined the term "earworm" - it's his primary research topic: http://www.business.uc.edu/earworms

philwelch• 17 years ago

In a sense, but "earworm" is a literal translation of the German "Ohrwurm", which predates it.

teeja• 17 years ago

I found an earworm-killer. It's a more 'powerful' piece of music you really like that isn't an earworm. Just play it, it 'reverberates' for a minute or two, and voila.

samuarl• 17 years ago

My personal experience is that "earworms" are caused by not hearing the ending of a song. For me its usually the song that is playing when I walk out of a store, or the song thats playing on the radio when I turn it off.

If I know the song well enough and I am able, playing it out to the end in my head gets rid of it.

Why songs get stuck in our heads

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