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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.

Photo Credit: Canva

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




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Video nails 'jukebox brain'—when every conversation triggers a song in your head

Anyone else feel like a walking karaoke machine?

Photo by RDNE Stock Project/Pexels

All day long is a sing-a-long.

Most of us know what it's like to get a song stuck in your head, but how many of us spend most of our day with song after song playing in our brains, triggered by the things we or other people say?

Quite a few of us, apparently.

Social media creator Chrissy Allen shared a video on Instagram that is resonating with thousands who "can't have a single conversation without your brain thinking of a song."

Watch and see if this is you:

"My mind is a literal jukebox," Allen wrote. Same, friend. Same.

Over 18,000 people commented on the video commiserating about being walking karaoke machines.

"I am a teacher and the other day I said, 'Okay everyone stop what you’re doing' and then without thinking said
'Cause I’m about to ruin the image and the style that you’re use to' and the entire class stared at me confused and not knowing what just happened. I then realized I am 50 and my head is filled with old lyrics."

"All the neurodivergent peeps having a mental karaoke session in the middle of conversations 🤣 and we will inevitably say 'could you repeat that?'"

"Her: he was cheating on me, but you know what's really bananas?
Me: ...B-a-n-a-n-a-s... I'm so sorry"

"Why am I like this! 😫 The willpower it takes to not sing out loud in professional settings. The struggle is real."


via GIPHY

"I can't distinguish an original thought from a verse in a song anymore. Send help."

"Very fluent in song lyrics and movie scenes 😂"

"Yes. I too have this problem. Lyrics and movie quotes are my language."

"This is me and my husband. We can't have a conversation without being reminded of a song then singing... We were in a harsh disagreement once and I couldn't help but start laughing, it annoyed him until I started singing the song, then he laughed, then we got over the disagreement and went on with our day 😂"

"My kids 'OH my god!!' Me 'Becky look at her butt!'
Then the kids just look at me like something is wrong with me. 🤣"

Apparently, some of us just have the entire catalog of every song we've ever heard just sitting there on standby until a word or phrase triggers the player to kick on. And yes, it can be a challenge to stop yourself from singing out loud at random times mid-conversation.

via GIPHY

There's actually a scientific term for this phenomenon (and the super-related "earworm" phenomenon of having a song playing in your head on repeat). It's called involuntary musical imagery, or INMI, which refers to a "conscious mental experience of music that occurs without deliberate efforts to initiate or sustain it." A study in 2020 found that INMI appears to be a universal phenomenon and that songs with certain characteristics are more likely to be played and replayed in our brains.

“Earworms are an extremely common phenomenon and an example of spontaneous cognition,” the lead study author, Kelly Jakubowski, PhD, told CBS News. “Psychologists know that humans spend up to 40 percent of our days engaging in spontaneous cognition and are starting to try to understand why our brains spend so much time thinking thoughts unrelated to our present task and how such thoughts might be useful.”

While an earworm isn't quite the same thing as having songs on shuffle in your head, there are definitely some song that tend to pop into people's heads and refuse to leave more than others. According to the study, the top earworm songs are:

1. “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga

2. “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” by Kylie Minogue

3. “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey

4. “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye

5. “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5

6. “California Gurls” by Katy Perry

7. “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen

8. “Alejandro” by Lady Gaga

9. “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga

Terribly sorry for putting those into your brain. (Apparently, Lady Gaga has a special knack for writing songs that stick in the ol' gray matter. Thanks, Gaga.)

via GIPHY

The question is, are some of us more prone to INMI than others? Perhaps. According to CBS News, research has shown that being constantly exposed to music and having certain personality traits, such as obsessive-compulsive or neurotic tendencies, can make people more susceptible to earworms. And a small 2015 study found that the size and shape of a person's brain—specifically, the thickness of certain brain regions—affected the frequency with which people got songs stuck in their head.

So those with jukebox brains might just be somewhat special, though judging from the responses to Allen's video there are quite a few of us out there bopping along to the soundtracks in our heads.

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This a capella version of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' will knock your socks off

Yebba Smith/Instagram

Simon & Garfunkel's song "Bridge Over Troubled Water" has been covered by more than 50 different musical artists, from Aretha Franklin to Elvis Presley to Willie Nelson. It's a timeless classic that taps into the universal struggle of feeling down and the comfort of having someone to lift us up. It's beloved for its soothing melody and cathartic lyrics, and after a year of pandemic challenges, it's perhaps more poignant now than ever.

A few years a go, American singer-songwriter Yebba Smith shared a solo a capella version of a part of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," in which she just casually sits and sings it on a bed. It's an impressive rendition on its own, highlighting Yebba's soulful, effortless voice.

But British singer Jacob Collier recently added his own layered harmony tracks to it, taking the performance to a whole other level.

Be ready, because PHEW.

If you're unfamiliar with either of both these singers, here's a little background.

Yebba is a singer-songwriter from West Memphis, Arkansas who has collaborated with various artists including Chance the Rapper, Ed Sheeran, Stormzy, and Sam Smith. She's released a few singles of her own over the past few years, and in 2019 won a Grammy alongside PJ Morton for Best Traditional R&B Performance with the song "How Deep Is Your Love."

"Yebba" is her stage name—a backwards play on her real name, Abbey Smith.

Her debut single, "My Mind" was written and performed shortly before her mom died of suicide in 2016. After that, the lyrics of the song took on a whole new significance. The powerful performance of the piece at SoFar NYC shows off Yebba's vocal range as well as her emotive style of singing.

YEBBA - My Mind | Sofar NYCwww.youtube.com

Jacob Collier, on the other hand, is a British musician who rose to fame through split-screen self-harmonizing videos he shared online. In 2012, his cover of Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" went viral on YouTube, and Collier was subsequently signed by Quincy Jones' record label. He has since been nominated for seven Grammy awards and won five of them. He's the first British artist to win a Grammy for each of his first four albums.

Collier—who has been referred to as "a musical force of nature" can play a wide range of musical instruments and often serves as his own one-man band. But his NPR Tiny Desk Concert with back-up vocals and instrumentalists is a delight. (It gets particularly fun at the 12:30 mark.)

Jacob Collier: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concertwww.youtube.com

Two impressive musical artists casually pulling together a soul-stirring performance of a much-beloved classic like "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is just the kind of entertainment we need after a year of collective trauma and hardship. Music is healing, creativity is healing, human connection is healing, and all three of those things came together beautifully in this brief video. (Anyone else wishing it didn't cut off? I don't think there's a longer version anywhere, since Yebba's original solo version wasn't a complete video either. I think it's time to demand a full recorded version, please and thank you.)

Yebba pretty much summed up here how we're all feeling after watching them sing:

You can find more of Yebba's music here and Jacob Collier's music here.

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'Fight Song' singer Rachel Platten designed a stylish new pin for a great cause.

'I've been learning lately that the voice in my head that makes me feel small, unworthy, and not good enough, is such a small piece of who I truly am.'

It's been nearly two and a half years since singer-songwriter Rachel Platten released "Fight Song," the near-inescapable empowerment anthem. The video for the hit single has been viewed on YouTube more than 291 million times and has sold more than 2 million copies.

Platten's song about finding the strength to try to make it in the music industry has inspired countless people around the world, taking on a life of its own. For some fans, the song has brought comfort in memory of a lost loved one; for others, it's been a catchall boost for getting through a tough time in life.

"Each story reminds me how powerful words can be, and keeps me going," Platten writes in an email, of the song's fans.

"I have loved having the chance to hear so many stories and learn of all the different ways that people across the world have made 'Fight Song' their own," she says. "Every story is just as important as the next."

Platten performing in 2016. Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for Crate and Barrel.

Platten recently teamed up with fashion brand Wildfang and nonprofit empowerment group I Am That Girl for the second edition of the "You Got This" inspirational pin collection.

The goal of "You Got This" is to inspire confidence in women and girls everywhere. The world can be a pretty rough place at times, and we can all use a bit of a reminder that there's a lot of power within each of us.

Why not wear it on your sleeve — literally?

The 2017 pin collection. Image courtesy of Wildfang.

Platten designed one of the pins ("Love Yo'self") in this year's collection. Other celebrity designers included Jackie Cruz from "Orange Is the New Black," soccer champion Megan Rapinoe, Bethany Consentino of Best Coast, and others.

For Platten, her pin's design is meant to acknowledge that, while the standards of perfection women are expected to meet are unrealistic, we're all perfectly imperfect in our own way.

Finding peace and confidence hasn't been easy for Platten. It's been a lot of work, but well worth the effort.

"I've been learning lately that the voice in my head that makes me feel small, unworthy, and not good enough, is such a small piece of who I truly am," she says. "I'm learning to not buy into that and to open my arms wide to the world and ask to surrender that small voice in place of the bigger, kinder, wiser, stronger voice who whispers 'You can TOO do this Rachel.'"

"Once I get back in alignment and remember who I truly am, and what I am capable of, the impossible all of a sudden seems possible again. I'd like every young woman to remember this."

The "You Got This" collection launches Aug. 3, and can be picked up at Wildfang's website. 10% of all proceeds go directly to I Am That Girl, a group aimed at empowering women and girls with a message of confidence, love, and self-acceptance.

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