There’s the one kind of earworm that’s (for me, at least) just annoying. The tune that gets stuck in your head and your brain keeps in on repeat for a day or two. Then there’s the one that’s pure torture of Sisyphusian magnitude – the one you can’t quite place. I’ve had a few bars of one particular song pop up in my head every couple of months – this has gone on for YEARS, mind you – and I’ve never been able to name the song or figure out where I’d heard it. I just cracked it, entirely by accident. This afternoon I downloaded a collection of James Bond theme songs from i-Tunes. Turns out the mystery music was the theme from You Only Live Twice, a movie I haven’t seen since, oh, 1982.
I got the theme to Dr. Mario stuck in my head right around the end of the NES era (199 . . . 1ish?) and didn’t figure out what it was until George W. was president. I think it just came to me one day, out of the blue. I hummed it for my brother to get confirmation and it turns out he could’ve told me at any time :smack:.
I recently discovered that some people have earworms at a severe level. Not only do they have a song running through their heads, they actually hear it. It usually happens when they’re in complete silence (such as trying to go to sleep), and it’s at a very uncomfortable volume. And as if that doesn’t suck enough, it’s never cool tunes. It’s usually something horrible, like marching bands or Ethyl Merman or something.
