And thanks a heap, article, for giving me that particular earworm.
The three ways are nothing new. I think we've all tried them.
Listen to or sing the complete song.
Just don't let it bother you.
Try using another song to get rid of it.
Yeah, researchers had to come up with these. Pfft.
As for #3 there are suggestions:
"God Save the Queen". ("My Country 'Tis of Thee" for merkins.) Yeah, that ought to bore the earworm to death.
Really? Culture Club? Right. Let's just replace one earworm with an even more annoying one. Referencing a line from one of their other songs: " ... do you really want to hurt me?"
Yes. Yes, I do.
These are the things I learn when I'm surfing the web at the office as I put off driving in Nashville traffic.
My earworm removal tool is the Oompa Loompa song from the Gene Wilder film. Works every time.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
Fortunately, the Oompa Loompas always leave my head pretty promptly. I'm lucky to have found it as I am unusually susceptible to earworms. It's something to do with my flypaper like memory, I assume.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I've been wondering about this for awhile, when you think of a song how clearly do you hear it in your head? Is it in your own voice, or the singers; just the main cords or background instruments as well?
I'm pretty sure I just hear the original (or my favorite version) as recorded, just like it would sound if it was on the radio. (Except for how it constantly loops back around to the beginning of the catchy part.) But it's in the back of my mind instead of my ears so there's no mistaking it for actually hearing it. Hell, I can't help but see (or visualize, I guess) the oompa loopas doing their little dance when my mind hears the song.
Yeah, La Donna e Mobile always gets me images of the Doctor singing it on the holodeck to an audience of the Voyager crew. Great question, Ari. I thought the answer, "I hear it, duh," was so obvious but it wasn't until now I that I noticed how vivid the images are that come with the song, too.
Ha ha, I just pictured Vitas. I have an excuse, though, because he's pretty, unlike whatever nerds sang your favorite men's rights anthem on The Star Tracks.
Even if this was the only good scene in that one episode of Voyager it would have easily been my favorite of that series. (Hint: The whole episode is as awesome as the intro.)
I've been meaning to type about this forever, and now I have a segue.
So that episode of Voyager (Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy), plus Human Error and Pathfinder (and Pathfinder's TNG predecessor Hollow Pursuits) have always been really special to me, because for years I lived with a constant fantasy world in my head, starring the various casts and crews of Star Trek, with me as the hero. I don't think I'm reaching to interpret it as an elaborate coping mechanism in the totally fucked up environment that was the military and working in intelligence. It was really difficult to not be able to talk to anybody about anything else in my life and I invented an entire brain full of friends and confidants.
I took everything I experienced and inserted it into a narrative set in the starfleet universe in the far flung future far as hell from planet earth. The people I interacted with were written in as characters as appropriate. Even the meanings of the music I listened to got adjusted to be appropriate in the fantasy. (On Topic!)
I never thought much about whether that was normal, or healthy, I figured it was just cheap escapism, which is pretty much the entire point of scifi/fantasy. But in those four episodes specifically, the fantasizing hero always has something wrong with them. Even though everybody on the crew has these fucked up fantasy lives on the holodeck*, doing it in your head is either a mental illness or a technological malfunction.
Anyway, I noticed a while ago that my fantasies had stopped forever ago without me noticing (or with me taking forever to notice, I guess). I could speculate that it had to do with any one of a number of enormous life changes, or maybe it's just part of my psychological development, but either way, realizing I had lost it (without noticing!) made me really suddenly sad. I have since tried to recall some of the old narratives and see if I could slide back in a little bit, but it's just not the same. Even after watching hours and hours of Star Trek, trust me, I have tried!
Who knows, it's probably healthy that I'm all satisfied in my real life and don't need that kind of escapism anymore (), but I still feel like I lost a part of me that was really special and magical.
* see: Dixon Hill, Sandrine's, that dreadful Victorian thing that Janeway was into, Fair Haven, and half the episodes of DS9.
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Last edited by Ensign Steve; 02-03-2014 at 02:24 AM.
It was really difficult to not be able to talk to anybody about anything else in my life and I invented an entire brain full of friends and confidants.
For what it's worth, though, I have a near constant narrative too. I don't feature in it, really, but there are a bunch of different themes, and the main reason it's internal is that I know the things I'm interested in are boring and annoying for other people, and it doesn't always make sense without a lot of context. If THAT even makes sense.
It ebbs and flows, though, and sometimes I get distracted for a while because of other pressing issues or something, but ultimately, I start to get mean and irritable if I'm just doing dumb shit all the time and everything is really boring and literal and chronological.
Usually I snap out of that eventually, though, because of something either totally new or something I haven't thought about it in a long time that's freshly inspiring. Or sometimes even some kind of direct folie a deux. It's like the triggers wear out from overuse.
Do you want to have a sestina contest? We could have a sestina contest.
I hear the actual performers singing in my head. The other day the "curator" of Jane Siberry's twitter was tweeting lyrics from my favorite of her albums. The lyrics to one of the songs made me hear it in my head so vividly I got goosebumps. This song, if you're interested.
__________________
"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I plan to eventually make a thread about this, but I ask because It's not just earworms I hear as actual music in my head but can pull up most tunes and hear them with almost crystal clarity. Combined with the right brain chemical balance (or falling asleep) they move from completely inside my head to being heard as if wearing headphones.
While I've known my hypnogogia is uncommon I've never really questioned how I recall things until hearing assorted comments from people that have made me wonder just how others actually recall and 'think' inside their head.
It's a Subway jingle for some really disgusting sounding sandwich.
A couple weeks ago or so, I woke up with that in my head for three consecutive days before it finally went away.
And now it's back. Earworms are always sort of annoying, but usually it's in a sort of amusing way. This one is really really bad, though. It's just a perpetual loop of a couple stupid lines.
And it's for a samwich even I wouldn't really want. Alternately, I've had Let It Go, the title track for Veronica Mars and one other tune I can't remember at the moment running through my head.
The snowman's song has bumped the snow queen's song in my head's playlist.
"Winter's a good time to stay in and cuddle but put me in summer and I'll be a ... happy snowman!"
Yep. I wasn't going to say because of the triggers, but it's what Bort said.
OK, so I know exactly fuck all about music stuff, but what do the Subway jingles do? I read something about it way back when the five dollar footlong jingle came out, like they're in a minor key or something? That makes them weird and also apparently makes them stick in your head really bad?
I'm working on an alternate earworm and hoping I don't end up with some kind of superbug mashup.