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Thread: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

  1. #1
    Registered User man dough nollij's Avatar
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    Default Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    I'm curious how other folks are with this phenomenon. I get songs stuck in my head all the time, and they are frequently songs I haven't heard in years. I have had songs pop out of nowhere, that I've heard so infrequently that I really shouldn't even know the melody, but there it is, just like a record playing in my head.

    Day before yesterday, it was "Eight Days a Week" by the Beatles. Yesterday it was Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi". There is no way I actually heard those songs to get the ear worm going.

    I'm in Antarctica again now, so it's not like I'm being exposed to Musak or anything (a HORRIBLE source of ear worm infections!). I do hear a lot of weird mechanical noises like server fans, heavy equipment, etc. I think sometimes my brain takes random noise and tries to resolve it into a melody, resulting in the dreaded ear worm.

    I think the psychology/neurology of this is really interesting. The fact that my brain can call up an exact recording of a song that I haven't heard in 15 years is amazing.

    Anyone else's ears get infected like that? Hmm?


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    write more songs Bob Wiegers's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    I always have a song in my head, but usually it's something recent. "One More Year" by Kasey Chambers at the moment, for example. maybe it's only recent stuff for me b/c I listened to so much junk longer ago.

    I always just assumed everyone had a song in their heads at all times, but my wife says otherwise, and asking around it seems like we're the weirdos. which is fine with me. the cool thing for me is that I think both of my preschool-aged kids have the same thing (no word from the newborn yet). it puts a little pressure on me to expose them to good stuff, although they could certainly do worse than "Jesus Loves Me"
    Original acoustic music - Solo Octave Mandolin - Original Folk Music

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    Registered User Steve Cantrell's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    The old ark is moving, is moving along.

    That one has been driving me batty.
    Steven E. Cantrell
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    Dennis Ladd Dennis Ladd's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    That fine old song that fingerpickers had to learn in the late 60s - "Guabi Guabi" by Mwenda Jean Bosco (also recorded by Ramblin' Jack Elliot). It popped up at lunch today and won't go away.
    Dennis Ladd

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    Registered User Eric Platt's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    I'll get them quite frequently. For a couple of months it was "Mr. Crump". More frequently it's any of a number of Norman Blake tunes.

    And sometimes it's totally unrelated to the music I play. Like a version of St. Thomas by Jim Hall and Ron Carter. (In fact, just writing about it make it pop into my head.)

    For me, at least, they tend to be more simple tunes. Jazzgrass or heavy orchestral pieces rarely show up uninvited.

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    Registered User barry k's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    My wife, who happens to be German, was singing "99 red ballons" the other day....in German, but i hate that song , in either language, and its stuck in my head., Nena....you are so cruel.

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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Wiegers View Post
    I always just assumed everyone had a song in their heads at all times, but my wife says otherwise, and asking around it seems like we're the weirdos.
    I prefer "gifted" to "weirdo" but indeed the MP3 player in the head isn't as common as I had thought. How do you tell people who don't have the music that you are grooving to the soundtrack in your head?

    I save a lot of money not needing to keep an iPod around but it really does stink when a song I don't like gets stuck on infinite replay. "It's a small world after all" can drive me right to the edge.

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    Registered User man dough nollij's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Quote Originally Posted by TomTyrrell View Post
    I save a lot of money not needing to keep an iPod around but it really does stink when a song I don't like gets stuck on infinite replay. "It's a small world after all" can drive me right to the edge.

    I remember a job I had where I was driving around in a company truck all day with no radio. Since I have such a strong internal stereo, I'm okay with not having tunes at work-- in fact it distracts me.

    I would pull up next to some bozo at a stoplight that was listening to Paula Abdul or Lionel Ritchey, and I'd be a goner. I'd have that (expletive deleted) stuck in my head for hours!

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    Registered User Pete Martin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    "The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out..."
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    acoustically inert F-2 Dave's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    I've had JT's 'Frozen Man' stuck in my head all day. Guess I'll have to youtube it.

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    Canescent Curmudgeon Miko's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Check out this page: www.EarwormsResearch.org Dr. Kellaris not only studies earworms, he's also a fine classical mandolinist. (Don't tell him I said so. He'll be hard to live with.)
    There is life beyond pentatonic scales.
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    Registered User Jim MacDaniel's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Thanks to this thread, It's A Small World After All is now stuck in my head. (Whenever I see or hear the phrase "ear worm", some old obnoxiously-catchy Disney tune invariably sneaks into my brain.)
    "The problem with quotes on the internet, is everybody has one, and most of them are wrong."
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Sorry 'bout that Jim!

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    Chief Moderator/Shepherd Ted Eschliman's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Now Jim, THAT'S just downright cruel; one notch worse than "Yo Ho, Yo Ho; a pirate's life for me..."

    Oops!
    Ted Eschliman

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    Registered Mandolin User mandopete's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Ear worms - SICK!

    Don't know why, but a fiddler I was jamming with last weeked asked if I knew How High The Moon and now that tune is stuck in my head.

    I guess it beats Don't Fear The Reaper !
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    Registered User Frank Russell's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Laurie Anderson's "O Superman," happens about once every two years. I listen to the song once or twice, then it leaves me alone. Total synthesizer Hades, but the lyrics always made me laugh.

    But when love is gone,
    there's always justice
    And when justice is gone,
    there's always force
    And when force is gone,
    there's always Mom.
    Hi Mom!
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    Mark Evans mandozilla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Gee thanks alot! Now I can't get the song OH DEATH out of my head!

    "The earth and worms both have a claim"

  18. #18
    Registered User Doug Edwards's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    This happens to me all the time. The Doctor says they might release me if I stay on my medication.

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    Grasslander B. T. Walker's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" has been stuck in my head near to the point of insanity induced by Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel". Hep me!
    Brian T. Walker
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  20. #20

    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    I've actually been purposely infecting myself. I've been listening to a large selection of the John Lee Hooker discrography over and over for the last two weeks.

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    Moderator JEStanek's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Frank, That Laurie Anderson song (the whole album) is pretty good! I like it for walking at night. I wonder, Lee, if part of it isn't just your brain compensating for the lack of song. I imagine Antarctica can be very quiet in the "off season" except for the computer noises. Nature hates a void so BAM you get a free tune from the brain jukebox to kill the silence...

    I like to be the vector of earworms. I used to drive one of my college friends crazy by singing "I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy ,joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart..." from the Simpsons in my best Rod and Tod voice. It would only take two lines of it and she would be DONE for hours!

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    Brentrup Evangelist Larry S Sherman's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Today I had that "Love and Marriage" song (the theme to "Married with Children") stuck in my head. Why is it never the songs that you want to hear?

    I've heard that they get stuck becasue your brain doesn't remember all of it, and once you listen to the whole song it will go away. But that's not always true for me.

    Larry

    PS: I love that Laurie Anderson album. I can't imagine what life is like in the Lou Reed/Laurie Anderson household. Must be intense!

  23. #23
    I'm a country mouse Bobbie Dier's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    All day I face the barren waste without a taste of water...cool, clear, water...water. There's one for ya. I like that song.
    I wandered again to my home in the mountains....

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    Registered User Mike Snyder's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    I know xactly what you're talking about. I try to keep the good ones and banish the bad worms. Lately my tune is Spotted Pony which morphs into Hangmans' Reel, then back into the Pony. Them worms I can live with.
    Mike Snyder

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ear Worms-- What's Stuck in Your Head Today?

    Quote Originally Posted by Frank Russell View Post
    Laurie Anderson's "O Superman," happens about once every two years. I listen to the song once or twice, then it leaves me alone. Total synthesizer Hades, but the lyrics always made me laugh.

    But when love is gone,
    there's always justice
    And when justice is gone,
    there's always force
    And when force is gone,
    there's always Mom.
    Hi Mom!
    After hearing her album Big Science, I had the jagged sort of "melody" from "From the Air" in my head for a week.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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