Earworms

[extraordinary walnuts]

From the moment I awake until I slide into unconsciousness at night, unless I'm actively listening to music, I will usually have an earworm on the go. Probably not the whole song, just fragments repeated forever. My brain will also helpfully suggest puerile/nonsense lyrics I can silently chant as the song loops endlessly in my head.

Playing the song usually doesn't help, I've come to accept that this is just the way my brain is wired and I will be in the grip of it until every last bit of meaning has been extracted from the recording. This can take weeks. Occasionally I can drive it out with a stronger earworm. ("We All Stand Together" by Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus is great for this.)

Meditation helped, I'm slightly more able to treat it as a mental background process these days.

Often the earworm is something good, but not always. Today I have received a new earworm and unfortunately it is "Naughty, Naughty, Naughty" by Joy Sarney. Christ.

Aren't earworms brilliant? Tell me about your best/worst earworms

[The Mollusk]

From the moment I awake until I slide into unconsciousness at night, unless I'm actively listening to music, I will usually have an earworm on the go. Probably not the whole song, just fragments repeated forever. My brain will also helpfully suggest puerile/nonsense lyrics I can silently chant as the song loops endlessly in my head.

This is so relatable to me it hurts. Not sure if you have ADHD but it's very much to blame for why my brain does this endlessly. Honestly I wake up in the middle of the night for a piss and instantly my brain is looping bits of a song, and I have to make myself very aware that it's happening in order to stop the automatic process of further dissecting the song bit by bit, just so I can get back to sleep. Sometimes I'll just look at a word or phrase and if it even slightly resembles the name of a band or a lyric or something it plants a song into my head. If I didn't like music so much I'd probably find it more annoying than I do.

[bgmnts]

Yeah I'm an earworm bloke myself. No ADD just chronic depression and general wrongness so maybe that is a factor.

If a song gets stuck in that's it, i'm doing pretty much everything: humming it, clicking it, singing it, making up my own lyrics, tapping the drums etc.

It' shiiiiiiite.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

usually got some stupid shit from cum town stuck in my head eg

*seven nation army riff*

THEY SAY MY DICK IS SMALL
AND MY BALLS ARE TOO SMALL TOO

[Crabwalk]

I have 1-2 earworms going pretty much constantly. I sometimes get negative or self-lacerating lyrics stuck in my head on repeat and that's not much fun tbh.

For example a couple of weeks back I had:

'Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere is bad'

from the Pissed Jeans song of the same name on a loop for about 4 days. It's a fun song but it felt like that line and sentiment were being used by my subconscious as a torture device.

Other lines that've been circling in my head for years are 'It's too dangerous to lead an empty life' from 'Apology for an Accident' by American Music Club and 'I'm already dead' from the song of (almost) the same name by Parquet Courts.

But then yesterday I just had the theme tune to Home & Away non-stop so that was nicer.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I've had the Frog Chorus one recently.  Specifically the deep voiced frog going "Bohh boh-boh-boh bohh BOHHHH" which I then have to imitate.  Mainly because I remember someone doing it at school and it was funny and stuck in my head.

Words conjure up song lyrics too, sometimes just a single word.  I've had to refrain from many a ___ considers rewrite post on grounds of if being too tenuous.

Today I've had this stuck in my head, with a little addition stuck in the middle...

Birds Eye potato waffles
They're waffly versatile
Pick it, lick it, roll it, flick it,
Waffly versatile!

[Angst in my Pants]

Another Earworm sufferer/enjoyer (depending on my mood) here.

I read a while back somewhere that singing "Private Dancer" by Tina Turner can help dislodge an annoying earworm. It sometimes works for me, I don't understand how, but then I suppose if I did it would stop it working for me altogether. Maybe I have an unconscious bias given that it's also my husband's karaoke song of choice...

Now tell me - do you want to see me do the shimmy again?

[Brundle-Fly]

This theme tune has been going around my head for decades now. It almost feels like an affliction like that woman who can't stop saying 'biscuit'.

[extraordinary walnuts]

Well it's nice to know I'm not the only one afflicted with this. I haven't been diagnosed with ADHD or anything but I did see a YouTube video recently that made me think "hmm maybe I should ask about this next time I'm at the doc's" - the power of suggestion?

@Crabwalk that sounds really unpleasant! I'm grateful that my own case of this doesn't really cause me any mental distress or stop me from getting on with my day. I try and have an attitude of amused detatchment about it. Having said that, let's see how amused I am two weeks from now after I've watched my brain sample and resample and resample that Joy Sarney track until the horrible syncopation in the call/response chorus is literally part of my DNA.

[xxxx xxx x xxx]

I've been flitting between the riff from Son Of My Father and the trumpet line from Sly And The Family Stone's Runnin' Away for years.  I'd love to know why.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

the trumpet line from Sly And The Family Stone's Runnin' Away

Shit, I get this one a lot too.

[non capisco]

I've been flitting between the riff from Son Of My Father and the trumpet line from Sly And The Family Stone's Runnin' Away for years.  I'd love to know why.

Talking of Son Of My Father thanks to @Egyptian Feast I've had the earworm "Sooooooon of Kier Starmer! My dad's a fucking wanker and I hate the cunt!" in my head for possibly months now.

[flotemysost]

From the moment I awake until I slide into unconsciousness at night, unless I'm actively listening to music, I will usually have an earworm on the go. Probably not the whole song, just fragments repeated forever. My brain will also helpfully suggest puerile/nonsense lyrics I can silently chant as the song loops endlessly in my head.

Yep, chalk me up as another with a 24/7 neural jukebox on the go.

Sometimes I'll just look at a word or phrase and if it even slightly resembles the name of a band or a lyric or something it plants a song into my head.

Oh same - if I bother to actually consciously unpick the potential reasons behind that song choice (which I rarely bother to do) then it can be quite funny. I've posted before about the first time I visited my mum and dad after a prolonged lockdown-induced hiatus, and at one point found myself absent-mindedly whistling Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again! by Gary Glitter (because, I suppose, it was good to be back, good to be back).

Other times though, it's a total mystery. A common one I get on waking is a song they used to play a lot in a bar we went to a few times on a family holiday to Kefalonia more than half my lifetime ago - not a scooby what the song's called or who the artist is or what the lyrics are, just a fleeting recollection of this melodramatic Hellenic-flavoured sweeping folk song with sinuous female vocals, but the melody seems to be firmly soldered into my auditory cortex.

Have also mentioned in a recent thread about how people's names/names of things I come across a lot in general/passwords etc. invariably get set to a tune according to the number of syllables at hand - again, not a conscious decision in any way. Lots of my mates seem to do this out loud though, so maybe I've picked it up off them - e.g. one of them has for *years* greeted me melodically with "[my name] to ya" a la Stevie Wonder's festive tribute to Martin Luther King, for no particular reason.

[non capisco]

Other times though, it's a total mystery. A common one I get on waking is a song they used to play a lot in a bar we went to a few times on a family holiday to Kefalonia more than half my lifetime ago - not a scooby what the song's called or who the artist is or what the lyrics are, just a fleeting recollection of this melodramatic Hellenic-flavoured sweeping folk song with sinuous female vocals, but the melody seems to be firmly soldered into my auditory cortex.

Yeah, weirdly enough I've got one of those! This really frantic bit of Greek music I kept hearing on a family holiday in like 1990 or something where there's a load of bouzoukis going garrity all playing this one riff and then a load of lads shout something in Greek that sounded a bit like "HEAVY METAL!". I know I will never find this but it squats in my cerebal cortex to this day.

[flotemysost]

^ haha, sounds great, whatever it is.

[non capisco]

It was a Hellenic hoofer, flote! Kind of like their version of The Hall Of The Mountain King, or Come on Eileen. (Sped up at the end.)

If you are a child of the 80s can you ever actually cook with mushrooms without hearing that MAKE ROOM FOR THE MUSHROOOOOOOMS jingle in your head for hours afterwards? Back when there were still adverts for just...things.

What's this advert for?
Mushrooms.
Whose mushrooms?
JUST MUSHROOMS.

[Ray Travez]

I'll wake up midsummer morning and Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin" Stevens will be playing in my head, from then until nightfall

"Snow is fallin', all around..." No It Isn't! Fuck Off, Brain!

I read a book by Oliver Burkeman; he goes on one of these vipassana retreats, where you meditate in silence for nine days. As soon as he kneels to start, Aqua's Barbie Girl starts up in his head, and just continues and continues... now, I quite like Barbie Girl, but, bloody hell... This must be why solitary confinement sends some people mad

[Egyptian Feast]

Talking of Son Of My Father thanks to @Egyptian Feast I've had the earworm "Sooooooon of Kier Starmer! My dad's a fucking wanker and I hate the cunt!" in my head for possibly months now.

Haha! I sing it as "My dad is fucking useless and I hate the cunt", but I'm honoured to have provoked such a long running earworm.

At the Chart Music disco, Simon Price recoiled in horror when I sang the first part at him while he was playing it, literally lurched back away from me in disgust. The second part placated him and got a chuckle, but I regretted my actions. It is a horrifying scenario to just drop on a man when he's trying to DJ.

[badaids]

It's rare there isn't some catchy hook from a piece of music I've heard in the last 40 years playing on loop in my head, there are many recurring ones but most usually one of the following:

The riff / or drum hook from Devil's Haircut.
The riff from Supernaut.
The red car and the blue car had a race from the Milky Way Advert.
A-wooka wooka choom from the Tracker advert.
The chorus riff from Cars.

Where there are words involved, they are always twisted to depraved version.

[Underturd]

I've been watching Bones and it's made me have Permanent Solution by Paradise Lost stuck in my head since I first noticed the similarity to the theme music five fucking seasons ago.

[famethrowa]

This theme tune has been going around my head for decades now. It almost feels like an affliction like that woman who can't stop saying 'biscuit'.

Oh wow. Are you me? Same here. Not daily but definitely weekly.

[Gurke and Hare]

I always have the nagging question of who it is that's been trying to stop the Grumbleweeds seeing just who they want to see at the back of my mind.

[Underturd]

Probably a folksinger of ethnic origin.

[bobloblaw]

It's rare there isn't some catchy hook from a piece of music I've heard in the last 40 years playing on loop in my head, there are many recurring ones but most usually one of the following:

The riff / or drum hook from Devil's Haircut.
The riff from Supernaut.
The red car and the blue car had a race from the Milky Way Advert.
A-wooka wooka choom from the Tracker advert.
The chorus riff from Cars.

Where there are words involved, they are always twisted to depraved version.

Odelay's a monster for earworms.
For me it's typically the doo-doo intro from New Pollution or, more commonly, the whistling that opens Sissyneck (sample of Dick Human's 'the moog and me')

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've had Night Moves stuck in my head for days. Never really thought much of it really but I guess it's a decent song.

[Minami Minegishi]

Somebody on here mentioned the offensive verse in Money for Nothing, a song I don't care about by a band that I barely know. I went and had a listen, didn't I?

That's me fucked then - humming 'f**got' to myself repeatedly for the last couple of days.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

That naggingly indecipherable bit of the Addams Family theme song which sounds like "So get 'em with ya shawl on, a ruse that you can call on", playing in my head over and over again. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? SHAWL? RUSE? ARGH.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Love Plus One by Haircut One Hundred.

[holyzombiejesus]

Has anyone seen Robot Dreams yet? That Earth Wind and Fire song hasn't left my head for nearly 36 hours. Thought I'd shaken it off and then I went for a coffee in Manchester and it was playing on the speakers in Pot Kettle Black. It keeps reminding me of the weird robot hum and it makes me grin, so I don't mind it.

[The Mollusk]

I've been awake for about 20 mins and I've already got 3-5 seconds of multiple songs from of Montreal's Aureate Gloom pinging around my head. It is probably Kev's best album post-Hissing Fauna though so I can handle it.