Experts explain how those certain songs get stuck in our heads and how to get them out
Can't Get You Out of My Head, literally.
A musical earworm gets stuck in an ear.
We've all had an earworm—or one hundred of them. Sometimes it's the full chorus of a song, like Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," (but seriously, hold on to that feeeeeyeealeeealin.) Or for a while, it was just one line of a Huggies commercial, "I'm a big kid now." (I dare you not to get that jammed into the folds of your mind. Sorry.)
On a thread specifically designed to share current earworms, Redditors report songs from Hamilton (particularly those sung by King George III), the "Monster Mash," and their iPhone ringtone as the ones most likely to get stuck in their heads.
- Huggies commercial in 1991. www.youtube.com, The TV Madman
The first question is why does this happen? In journalist Elle Hunt's piece "Tortured by an earworm? How to get it out of your head" for The Guardian, she gives the example of last year's release of Wicked (the movie) and notes how easily the song "Defying Gravity" seemed to nestle itself into many people's heads.
She claims "more than 90% of people experience such an 'earworm' at least once a week…usually 20 seconds long." She cites Kelly Jakubowski, associate professor of music psychology, who shares the main cause of earworms is exposure to the music. This tracks. For years, it seemed impossible to shop in a Banana Republic in December without walking out with "Last Christmas" buzzing between your ears.
- An explanation of why and how music gets stuck in our head. www.youtube.com, TED ED
Hunt also shares Jakubowski's studies that certain tempos and lyrics tend to stick more than others. "Songs with faster tempos and 'memorable but distinctive' melodies were more likely to be 'musically sticky,'" she adds. Jakubowski gives examples including Deep Purple’s "Smoke on the Water," the chorus of Lady Gaga’s "Bad Romance," and of course, Kylie Minogue’s "Can’t Get You Out of My Head."
But once these tunes make themselves at home, how do we get them out? Fittingly, having just mentioned "Last Christmas" (and with the holidays around the corner), Culture Desk correspondent for NPR, Chloe Veltman's article, "All I want for Christmas is help getting this song out of my head," is timely. She wrote just last year, "The holidays are upon us. 'Tis the season for chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose—and getting songs like Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' hopelessly stuck in our heads."
Not to worry, she assures us. There are ways to fix it. One such remedy was co-written by the aforementioned Kelly Jakubowski herself. "The Earworm Eraser is a 40-second audio track designed specifically to squash earworms—a song on repeat circling around and around in your brain that can't easily be shaken off."
- YouTube www.youtube.com, Atlassian
Veltman claims that it even works for "Baby Shark," the insanely catchy children's song/torture device. Oops, there's another earworm you might have just caught. If one doesn't have access to this link, merely listening to a different song is advised. Jakubowski insists, “It’s nearly impossible to have two songs in your head at once: you just don’t have the cognitive resources to do that."
But some have different theories as to what is actually happening. In the subreddit, r/todayilearned, someone posts "TIL the 'earworm' phenomenon (having a song stuck in your head in a loop) can occur due to the brain’s attempt to fill a gap in the auditory cortex."
Upon further investigation, this is seemingly true. The Kennedy Center explains, "The auditory cortex is where earworms do most of their karaoke routine. This is a part of the brain that does a lot of the processing of sounds, including music. It is also where musical memories are stored."
Researchers at Dartmouth scanned brains while asking the subjects to simply "imagine" listening to certain songs. Lead researcher David Kraemer shares, "We found that the auditory cortex that is active when you’re actually listening to a song was reactivated when you just imagine hearing the song."
Earworms, like common colds, aren't going anywhere anytime soon. The best we can do is understand why they happen, treat them the best we can, and know that most likely, they will go away with time and rest. And if not, well then perhaps learn to love "Baby Shark" while it lives rent free in your head. It is pretty catchy.
Official music video for Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head." www.youtube.com, Kylie Minogue
