What Tunes Give You An Earworm?

Subject: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 29 Sep 12 - 07:20 AM

Ear Wormy The ones that really stick?

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Sep 12 - 10:15 AM

Whitney Blake was a hottie...

As fir earworms??? I donno... If they is bad fir ya then my all-time most hated song is Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" which has had me strugglin' with my position on capital punishment...

B~

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Ian
Date: 29 Sep 12 - 03:14 PM

During the olympics I was stuck with the words to The Wild Rover to the tune chariots of fire

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: gnu
Date: 29 Sep 12 - 03:45 PM

I ain't gonna click that link. Did it on other such threads in the past and was pissed off fer days. I get enough of that on the radio. It IS quite a phenom tho, eh?

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 29 Sep 12 - 05:32 PM

What happened to Don Defore and Whitney Blake?
(:-( o)=

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 30 Sep 12 - 05:44 AM

Downeaster Alexa

Linstead Market

Day-Oh

Hill an' Gully

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 30 Sep 12 - 05:44 AM

There's a recent very catchy popsong that goes "I wanna party I wanna dance, put your hands upon my body, on my body on my body, put your hands upon my body." I've found myself singing this softly in the supermarket, at a bustop, in the doctor's waiting room and in the village shop. People are talking...

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 30 Sep 12 - 06:15 AM

Mmmmmmm......nice.
(:-( P)=

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 30 Sep 12 - 06:21 AM

usually sosngs that I can't stand

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,Jane Ann Liston
Date: 30 Sep 12 - 07:33 AM

The Champagne Aria from Mozart's Don Giovanni, e.g.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_50t1WonhU

It must be the bubbles!

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: alex s
Date: 30 Sep 12 - 09:05 AM

"Cryin'" by the Big O

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 30 Sep 12 - 02:33 PM

If you mean the kind of thing I hate to hear, then top of my list would have to be Hotel California, not that the song as such is so bad, I think it marked the end of Country music and the beginning of what now passes forb it. But I must hear it every couple of weeks in some Folk club, no one ever tries to do anything new with it, and it just seems to go on and on monotonously bland. Streets Of London my second choice for much the same reason

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 30 Sep 12 - 04:32 PM

No. Tunes that play in your head all day long.
For days, weeks, months or years.
(:-( O)=

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 01 Oct 12 - 07:05 AM

And Whitney Blake always seemed to have anger issues to me.
I figure too many guys played Mister Grabby Hands with her or something.
(:-( 0)=

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,highlandman at work
Date: 01 Oct 12 - 10:14 AM

Any and all tunes.
The worst ones are the tunes that can be endlessly cyclic.
My #1 on the all-time wormy list is "Storybook Love" by Mark Knopfler (theme from the Princess Bride). It just goes on and on and on (and up a fourth) and on and on (and back down a fourth again) and on ....
And when you don't know the words well and just fall back into the same verse over and over...
-Glenn

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 01 Oct 12 - 11:32 AM

That's it.Stuck in your head and won't go away. Maybe the cure is another earworm.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: nickp
Date: 01 Oct 12 - 01:04 PM

I daren't think of them in case they come back...

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: paula t
Date: 01 Oct 12 - 04:08 PM

At the moment it's "Oats and Beans and Barley Grow," "Big Red Combine Harvester" and "Harvest Samba". I wake up in the middle of the night singing them. (I'm preparing a Harvest assembly at school!) Argh!

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: vectis
Date: 02 Oct 12 - 09:04 AM

I daren't post any names here or they'll never go away! Argh!

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,Azoic
Date: 02 Oct 12 - 11:26 AM

Winter Comes In / Vidlin Voe-June Tabor

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,AZOIC
Date: 03 Oct 12 - 12:28 AM

"Happed In Mist"- June Tabor

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: MMario
Date: 03 Oct 12 - 11:18 AM

"Gladiator"

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Newport Boy
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 02:48 PM

The last couple of days, Billy Joel's "And so it goes". I think it's Barbara's voice as much as the tune. Thornbridge - And So It Goes

Phil

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 12:38 PM

Usually the last song I was exposed to (even 60s pop songs!), but sometimes the most unlikely ones materialise from thin air and stay till I defeat them by playing one of my favourite albums - Brian McNeill, Iain MacKintosh, Jez Lowe, Roy Bailey and the like.

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Kele
Date: 14 Oct 12 - 02:00 PM

Well, today, for no apparent reason, it was "Everybody Run--The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun." Perhaps because I have a migraine. My neurologist says things like that can happen...

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 12:17 AM

"A Literary Nightmare" short story
(excerpt) Mark Twain 1876

(A viral "ear worm " infects the narrator's brain...untl he can pass it off to preacher /reverand. He is similarley afflicted until he can pass it on to a symposium of students.)


Conductor, when you receive a fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare,
A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare,
A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

CHORUS
Punch brothers!
Punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

Sincerely
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 12:13 PM

With me, it's not the tune that makes the earworm, it's that the song has a word in it which is connected to something I am doing.

For example, if I am making grape jelly, the line about "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored" will be an earworm that day.

I wonder if earworms could be connected to allergies. When allergies are bad, the brain and spine are under excess fluid pressure. Could the pressure be irritating the part of the brain where the repeating tune is stored, causing it to "play" the piece again and again? I think this would be a great idea for a study.

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 12:59 PM

I think it may have something to do with stress or anxiety. Like nailbiting or overeating. An obsessive compulsive thing.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 03:15 PM

That could be, too. Again, I think this would be worth studying.

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 15 Oct 12 - 03:24 PM

Maybe we can get a big fat government grant and study it together.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 16 Oct 12 - 10:01 AM

Too much work, and I'm too old.

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Oct 12 - 10:09 AM

It's often the combination of the tune and the particular rendition of the song.

For me, for instance, Amos' elegiac and mesmerizing rendition of "Calico Dress" at the Getaway was totally unforgettable.   Still singing it as I pulled into my driveway.

Subject: RE: What Tunes Give You An Earworm?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Jan 13 - 08:15 AM

An "official" report of a study on how to get rid of earworms may be of interest here.

The advice is that you should occupy yourself with a task that "absorbs your attention" in order to take your mind off the "worm."

"Earworms are more likely to wriggle in when people are bored or engaged in activities that are either somewhat mindless or very complicated." (must be hell for Republicans)

Unfortunately, the advice also warns that a task that is too difficult may make the problem worse, so those of us who have difficulty with routine things like shuffling while mumbling without running into the walls may have difficulty finding the appropriate remedies.

Full details, such as they are, at the link.

John