Getting tunes stuck in your head

[sammyc]

(part prompted by the Friday Playlist thread so posted here rather than Movies TV Music and Books as it's not directly about music.. sort of)

I know everyone can get affected by this now & again.. but for me it seems to be getting worse.. stuff really stuck on a loop for days & days, on & off. Why that should be I don't know unless I'm simply cracking up ever further with time.

I've had Alkaline Trio lately (boy have I had them..), I've had Passenger: Let her Go, involuntarily, courtesy of the dentists (thanks a bunch ) and I've had We Plough the Fields and Scatter. I'm not religious. I have no idea..

How badly do you get this and any suggestions? (They don't have to be serious )

[stevie lee]

my suggestions.

listen to other slightly more annoying stuff, so that gets stuck in your head instead.

read a bunch of immersive books, so you start to think of them instead and how you would fit your life into the scene, if somehow you went trough a weird portal and ended up there.
me and my sister made up entire family networks, friends, relationships all based in the diablo universe, which then went into the wh40k one and lord of he rings.
and you don't see me suggesting any songs to listen to in those other threads you mentioned, do you?


but, yeah, 'oops I did it again' and 'baby one more time', just the choruses for some reason, well they've been in my head for the best part of a decade . WHY WON'T IT STOP!!

so my advice doesn't work.

[mynameissi]

I have recently got this stuck in my head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcJFdCmN98s
Help. Me.

[Ttaskmaster]

Overwrite it with another tune. Play that tune several times in a row. Play it right before you go to bed and at other times when you're dog-tired.

I get things stuck a LOT as I am a musician and am always open to subconsciously absorbing tunes. I had Let It Go from Frozen stuck for weeks once!!

[Smudger]

I've got the Chris Evans Breakfast Show jingle going round and round in my head. Annoying.

[Funkstar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm

[sammyc]

Thanks for the above - I have never read up on the syndrome, presuming it is what it is & v common, but interesting to see it analysed. It is definitely a short snippet when I get it, probably even under the 15-30 seconds mark I'd say. Love the Robert Graves anecdote.

As suggested, I do usually find that distraction/swapping it in order to overwrite it works eventually - though it can take a while. The risk there is that it's equally annoying to me whether I like the piece of music or not.. so at best it would just be a change. It's almost off-putting me from listening to stuff - it's like, 'noooo that was my new favourite don't make me not be able to play it ever!' Sometimes it's a matter of risking whether something can then be gone back to, without it setting up all over again. (I'm Britney-free, mercifully. )

Not surprising that working with music gives it to you quite strongly. I did wonder if the fact I listen more through headphones these days that I once did has any effect - sends the worm in further as it were but that's not conclusive..

I haven't clicked the link above yet, or done a search for the Chris Evan's jingle, but I may yet.. kill or cure..

[stevie lee]

well, let me put it this way.

when you are old and decrepit, slightly or very deaf, you'll be glad of the songs going around your head, keeping you company until the wee hours.


and why do you think old people listen to old songs?

they are the songs that match up to their 'stuck in head' songs so they can have some harmony in their head for once instead of going doo-lally.
its why when you talk to them they say you are mumbling a lot. the sounds of tom jones, cliff richard and the beatles are humming around their head.

but if you play the song in the room*, their memory part of the brain turns off because they are now hearing it instead, so its now safe to talk to them, mumble free.

try it with your own old people. it seems to work**




*finding out what song it is is the difficult part, because if you ask them, they cant hear you because of the song in their head.
**may or may not work.

[sammyc]

try it with your own old people. it seems to work**

Well I have outlived all my own old people one way & another so I am 'the older generation' ergo decrepit by proxy, and the last thing I want is What's New Pussycat going round & round my head. Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh etc etc etc etc etc etc...


Nice theory though

I may soon have more to worry about than ineradicable tunes.. ineradicable images..