Straight Dope Research Poll - Help Cecil with Earworms

[Peanuthead]

[ol]
[/ol]1. Always. At least when I’m not conciously thinking of another tune my constant earworm is see #2

2. a. Pressure Drop by Toots and the Maytals.
   b. Something heard on the radio or TV (varies)
   c. Something that comes out of nowhere (varies)

3. To get rid of 2b or 2c (provided I actually want to) I bring 2a to the forefront. I like that song so I don’t mind the earworn.

[Peanuthead]

@devilsknew

Not sticking to the protocol, but yes, I go through earworm phases.

There is one advertising earworm that has driven me crazy for years, despite it’s incipience and demise… haven’t heard it in years, but it see3ms to have a viscous subliminal nature that makes it psychically adhesive. Three simple tones and three syllables echoing in my synapses-

♪♪ By Men - nen! ♪♪

It’s more sticky and cloying than actual speed stick.

Well then why don’t you just replace it with the Theme From Jeopardy?

[chique]

1. All the freakin’ time.
2. Anything; it’s completely random. However, I’ve noticed that they tend to fall into two categories: a) Something I haven’t heard in a long time, and is triggered by something I read about; and b) A fragment that my brain can’t finish and won’t go away until I find the damn lyrics online and incessantly watch the Youtube video.
3. They usually go away by themselves.

This question wasn’t asked, but I can generally rid someone else of an earworm by starting to sing “It’s A Small World” at them. Which usually leads to another problem, but still.

[Claude_Remains]

1. Daily.

2. a. “The black page drum solo” by Frank Zappa. Since I was a teen. I’m now 46.
   b. “I love you more today than yesterday but not as much as tommorow”
   c. Last few days I can’t shake the theme from “pee-wee’s playhouse”

3. Zero success with the battle.

[tdn]

1. How frequently are you afflicted by the phenomenon of songs being stuck in your head, a.k.a. “earworms?” (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, Longer, or Never)

Maybe 2-3 times per year.

2. What three songs, tunes, jingles, or melodies have most recently (say, within the last year) been stuck in your head as an earworm? If you have more than three, feel free to list them. If possible, please name the artists.

Springtime for Hitler, Santa Claus is Coming to Town

3. What strategies have you successfully used to rid yourself of earworms

Purposely change the record in my head. If that doesn’t work, listen to actual music. If that doesn’t work, resign myself to misery. But usually the first thing works.

[Una_Persson]

@Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela

I’d be curious to hear from other working musician/singer types. For me, an earworm is an important tool in memorization. Some pieces are easier to get to the earworm stage (learning Rossini is the earworm equivalent of smearing yourself with honey and staking yourself to an anthill, for instance.) than others (Berg’s ‘Wozzeck’ was a particularly strange thing to have looping away in your mind’s ear.) but they all get there sometime. So, while it’s just as annoying to me when a tune keeps coming back, it’s a good signpost for me on the way to learning a piece. Anybody else get that?

You may be interested to know that according to one survey of earworms:

The amount of musical education (in years) was also
positively related to INMI frequency, but a single statistical
oddity was observed. Among the respondents with over fifteen
years of musical education (the musicians), the retrospectively
reported frequency of INMI was lower than for any other
musically cultured group, irrespective of age.

(INMI = involuntary musical imagery = earworms)

[Politzania]

1 - not quite sure they are “earworms” - but I regularly (several times daily) will get a bit of a song stuck in my head for no apparent reason.

2. “it’s a small world” by the Sherman Brothers (from the Disneyland ride)
   “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks
   “MacArthur Park” - tho it usually morphs into “Jurassic Park” by Weird Al Yankovic

3. I usually rid myself of earworms by thinking of another song - “Gratitude” by Oingo Boingo seems to work particularly well for me.

[elelle]

I usually have music playing in my head, pleasant enough; I define an Earworm, like a tapeworm, as a song you really wish was not banging around in yer skull: “Why the hell is that parasite there??? I don’t even like that song…Gahhh, please get it outta here!”

Biggest Horrid earworm, the above mentioned Terry Jacks song,“Seasons in the Sun”
It’s cringe-worthy, but my mind remembers it intact from Jr. High days, and I didn’t like it then. Once it gets going, it’s hard to shake, more like an earleech.

A couple of years ago, The Stephanie Miller radio show ran a Bad 70’s Earworm theme for a few days, where callers suggested the worst of that lot, mighty entertaining. (It was spurred on by my writing in about the horrid Terry Jacks song being played as background music for the Dangerous 70’s Toys theme the previous week.) Might be worth listening to that show, Una, if they could send the files to you.

To try to flush out an earworm, it helps me to sing the song out loud with ridiculous lyrics:

“We had joy, we had fun,
Until this shitty bubblegum
It’s a whining ass song
M’feryer needs to be Gone…” The laughter seems to dislodge the beast.

My current earworm is an exception to the rule. At first, it was annoying, because it was just popping up all the time. It’s the result of a current Netflixation; watching all the episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm in a row, every night. The theme song is “Frolic”, by Italian composer Luciano Michelini. It was an earworm of Larry David’s from a bank commercial he once heard. Now, it is a permeating earworm of mine, but, it’s become quite pleasant, especially in terms of it’s intended balance on the show to a crazy world. What to make of that?

And, last; I’ve always wondered if the hefty dose of earworms current generations have will all come out in our elderly years. Picture a bunch of future seniors sitting in rockers out on the porch of the retirement home, smiling and nodding to The Flintstones theme song…“We’ll have a gayyyyy olllld tiiiimmmee!”

[kayT]

@antechinus

1)More like a brain screensaver though - it only comes on when nothing else requiring much thought is happening.

Yes. I had no idea so many other people had this affliction.

I have songs in my head pretty much all the time. Often it’s commercial jingles (free credit reports have much to answer for; as well as Jack’s mini buffalo ranch chicken sandwiches). I have no reliable way to rid myself of these. Lately I find myself singing xmas carols. I hate xmas music. Silver bells? WTF?

[BigT]

1. Monthly, but, back when I was a music major, daily.

2. Oddly enough, themes from video games and other songs I heard in my youth. Modern songs don’t get stuck in my head unless they are like songs I already know.

3. Distraction. Just like any other obsessive thought. (I have OCD.) The absolute worse thing I can do is actually think about purposefully changing the song. You run into that “don’t think of pink elephants” phenomenon.

Still, if the song is pleasant enough, I just enjoy it.

[GardeningSpirit]

I’ve had bouts of depression since I was 21, and I’m now 51. One of the first signs I have that I’m starting to become depressed is having earworms.

1: Since things have been tough the past couple of years (death, finances, etc.), I get earworms frequently. The longest time period for one earworm was three freaking weeks! I refuse to try and remember the name of the song, it might come back!

2: When I was a kid, I was scared to death of the song, “They’re coming to take me away!”. That one was so creepy to me, that I’d hide in my bed with the covers over my head. Another frequent flyer for me is Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, “Little Red Riding Hood”. Finally, one that is even more annoying is Madonna singing, “Don’t cry for me Argentina”. I don’t know all the words to it, so it loops even more frequently.

3: I haven’t tried anything that has worked so far. I just wait them out and hope they go away.