The mighty earworm
I first heard the term earworm a few years ago, when it was used by one of my online acquaintances. I immediately knew what it referred to, and I suspect that many of you will to.
An earworm is a section of music of song that gets trapped in your head, and goes round and round repeatedly, seemingly beyond your control. I suffer from earworms a lot of the time – they provide a background music for my everyday life.
The degree to which having an earworm is normal for me shows in that I didn’t consciously think much about earworms again from that first introduction to the term a few years ago, until this weekend, when I realised that my usual experience of a single earworm had morphed into a double earworm extravaganza. I had not one tune repeating on an endless loop in my head, I had two. What’s more, the songs were completely different from each other in both style and sentiment, and were chopping and changing between each other at random intervals.
Suddenly my internally-created musical accompaniment to life was a horrid and inescapable jumble of musical phrases that wasn’t sitting well with me at all. The background became foreground, and for a while I found it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the music itself.
It’s now Tuesday afternoon, and one of the two tunes that was annoying me on Sunday is still going around and around now. It has been for most of my waking hours since then. Annoying? Maybe a bit, but like I said, this is normal for me.
Wikipedia says that the degree to which people are affected by earworms varies considerably, but that almost everyone experiences them at some point. They note that people with OCD often report a higher occurrence than the general populace, which I find interesting. As an adult with Asperger’s, I feel most comfortable when gently surrounded by well defined and often practised events and rituals. Not unlike someone who has OCD, in fact. I wonder if there is any correlation there?
Do you suffer from earworms?
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5 Responses to “The mighty earworm”
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awildanimal on September 15th, 2009 awildanimal(Quote)
Yeah I do, as mentioned here (http://awildanimal.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html ), but I didn’t know they were called earworms. LOL.
leica on September 16th, 2009 leica(Quote)
I hate that term! Makes me think of earwigs which are just plain creepy.
I get it all the time, but everyone does, no? The worst are pop songs, which seem to get stuck in my head for ages. Stuff I like does too, but I find actually listening the song a few times seems to shift it.
Oddly, my latest is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUcwjcqstxc – an old old favourite of mine I hadn’t listened to in years until it got stuck in my head.
James on September 16th, 2009 James(Quote)
Aha!
You see, this is what I thought too – everyone gets earworms all the time, don’t they? When you get them all the time, it’s easy to extrapolate that everyone does.
I’m sure that most people get them on occasion, but a lot of the time? I don’t think so. But then again, that is extrapolation to a degree as well.
jonah on September 17th, 2009 jonah(Quote)
I suffer from “earworms” too! I haven’t heard this term until now. I think I have one pretty constantly…I get earworm “medleys” going on in my head a lot, where 2 or 3 songs will combine into one. I usually don’t mind them.
James on September 21st, 2009 James(Quote)
jonah,
Thanks for the confirmation. My small non-scientific sample of comments is starting to suggest that perhaps earworms are quite prevalent amongst those with ASDs. More prevalent than the population at large? Who knows…
My earworm is usually very background and not disturbing too. It;s only when I spot it that it becomes annoying – perhaps because I can’t shift it.