Earworms: A Cure
on January 3, 2011 at 11:30 amOK, first things first. You’ve probably all suffered from Earworms one time or another, but you may not know them by that name, or what they really are.
Image: bigbrotherearth.blogspot.com
An Earworm is a short bit of music or a lyric, often a jingle—the key is that it is short, catchy, and contageous—that is somehow infects your mind and refuses to leave. Oh, the nights I have spent, eyes shut tightly, trying to sleep, while an unfinished bit of a song repeats, repeats, repeats.
I’m here to say I’ve found a cure. Two of them, in fact. But, more about that later.
First, a little tidbit of the history.
Mark Twain wrote a short story in 1876 called “A Literary Nightmare” (later republished as “Punch Brothers, Punch“). It is the story of a man who boards a train, and catches an Earworm after hearing a bit of doggerel from the conductor:
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!
Punch brothers! Punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
The story goes on to say that the narrator found his mind attacked, as by a virus, and was unable to stop reciting this piece. He eventually was freed from the “horror” by passing the jingle on to another person.
So much for that. Earworms don’t really work that way. They repeat because they are stopped before completion. This happens if you hear a snatch of a lyric, but cannot remember the rest. It is as though they strive to be finished, but barring that, they keep repeating in “hopes” that the rest of the lyric will be revealed.
Cure One is this: FINISH THE DAMN SONG in your head! The drawback with this method is that you may have any number of Earworms queued up, ready to strike to take its place.
You can spend many hours that should be reserved for sleep in this endeavor.
Cure Two: Being plagued by these most of my life, and having lost more sleep that I care to compute, you can imagine that I’ve tried any number of things. Drugs, exhaustion, reading, but eventually, no matter what the palliative employed, the Earworms crept back to dance in my head.
Image: www.buzberry.com
I hit upon the idea of replacing the earworm with a tune that I could recreate from first to last notes, and had marginal success using Peter’s theme from Peter and the Wolf. The theme had no words to get pulled into the cycle, and it actually worked sometimes. Call this Cure 1.5.
About three weeks ago the idea hit me that if I could listen to music—soft, calming, lyric-less music—while I tried to drift off to sleep that would perhaps work. But even played at a low volume, the chances were that the sounds would bother others in the house that did not suffer from Earworms. (The cretins.)
The light went on. I ran to my computer, punched up Amazon.com.
Yes! There it was! A “Pillow Speaker”. I ordered a mid-priced one. Found an extension speaker wire with a volume switch on it, and completed the purchase. As I was in desperate need, I got over-night shipping.
The speaker came with a disk of sleep-inducing music, and I have since found others here and there on the Net.
Boys and girls, I have not spent a single night awake with a lyric chasing itself around my head since.
OK, fine. This isn’t really a cure. Granted. The Earworms are still there. They still rustle in my mind during the day, but this trick does the job, and falling asleep to the strains of pleasant music that nobody else can hear is worth the cost.
What a pleasure.
NOTE: This is not an advertisement for the pillow, the switch or for Amazon (although they are one of our sponsors). If you want to know more about what I got, let me know.
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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio... and isn't it time you experienced some of them?
I get the occasional earworm . . . but they rarely intrude upon my slumber.
This sounds like a grand idea for anyone suffering from insomnia due to encroaching thoughts, viruses, or worms.
Thanks, Rik
Not everybody gets earworms, at leat not to the point of being bothered by them. But those of us who suffer from them really do suffer.
I’m glad you are not afflicted. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
Hi,
I like your suggestion. I’ll try some classical tonight when I go to bed. I have been tortured with random songs every night of my life for the past several months. It all else fails a friend suggested hypnosis.
Thanks for the pillow/speaker tip. My mind is like a juke box and has been for years. I have to have the TV on to gid rid of the “voices” (tunes) and lately has gotten worse. Tonight I didn’t even need to turn on the radio because I had the top 40 already playing in my head!
Hi, Paul
Glad I could spread the word. It has sure worked for me!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
i rarely go a split second of any day without some sort of song playing in my head. This never really seamed to bother me until my demon song emerged. It began one morning when i woke up with 40 yr. dream playing in my head (at the time, i loved that song). It kept romping around my head all day. Soon to follow was the most painful and sleepless night of my life. The song made sleep impossible and terrifying. Ever since then i become paralyzed at merely the thought of the title. Now, during every waking moment, i must focus all I’ve got on keeping the song out of my head. Strangely, it rarely actually returns to my head involuntarily. So I should be free from shackles right? Wrong. The last time it came to me while i was drifting off to sleep, I felt a sinking feeling in my chest, my heart started pounding out of my chest, my pores started dumping out sweat and for some reason, diarrhea always follows these song triggered episodes. I am shamelessly terrified by this song; this several month, never ending plague. Thanks for the pillow idea. I’ll take whatever i can get. I resorted to therapists, all of whom were unhelpful and perplexed by the phenomenon. I’ve never had mental problems before this ear-worm dropped anchor. I just want it to end so i can go back to being a normal college kid. please help
I gotta say, Gray, I truly feel your pain.
There are nights–or more precisely were–when those blasted ear worms would keep me awake most of the night. If I got up in the middle of the night, they would blast away immediately. You’ve gotta hate that, especially if sleep is at a premium (and when is it not?).
It’s been awhile since I’ve reread my piece on this, but let see if I recall. Some of the tricks I’ve used include: 1.) Finishing the song in my head. If the song is one for which I know the full tune, just completing it helps. Of course, this is in the case when the ear worm is just a short smattering of the tune stuck in a loop (I especially hate that). 2. When I do not know the full tune, and can therefore not finish the tune, I replace it with one I do know and can finish. In my case it is Peter’s Theme from “Peter and the Wolf”. That is a short piece, easy to remember. 3.) Finding music (without lyrics–lyrics kill!) that is designed to help you sleep (you can find this almost anywhere by doing a Google Search), and using the pillow speaker or soft headset and playing it as you go to bed. Finally, 4) if none of these work, there is always medication. OTC sleep aids may help, but like prescription aids, can become habit forming. The prescription med that has worked best for me, is: Zolpidem, but getting an Rx isn’t easy, and refills are harder still.
I think your best bets 1, 2 and 3.
I sincerely hope one of these help you. I know from hard experience just how nerve-wracking it can be to have a tune in your head day and night, and how downright debilitating it can be to sleep.
Good luck!
I am so grateful to have found this forum. I have terrible, relentless earworms…I DREAM music–even without lyrics. I wake up with the song still playing in my head. I adore music, but I am starting not to listen to it because if I like a tune, I know it will stick to my neurons and dendrites like Superglue. I feel so much better knowing I’m not the only one. I am currently trying to listen to relaxing New Age music just to push the film soundtracks and Phantom-of-the-Opera tunes out of my head. It is a bit helpful, though I still have trouble falling asleep (I have never been a good sleeper). Sleeping pills help a lot, but I don’t want to get hooked. I am really curious about something: Are most of you musically inclined? Maybe this is God’s way of telling us we should be learning to sing or play an instrument!
Nice to see you here, Debbie.
You bring up a very interesting point about musical inclination.
While I do not play any instruments (I don’t have the discipline for it) I seriously believe that listening to music attentively, and critically (something I cannot help) is also a musical talent. So many people I know hear only melodies, or beats, or only lyrics, but cannot put them all together in their “appreciation”.
You now have me thinking that an affinity for music MUST be a strong component to the Earworm phenomena. Thanks for that!
Hey,
last week I woke up with a song playing in my head. I was like “meh”, it happens sometimes, and also I love music and listen to it a lot (I play jazz piano a sax also), so I didn´t pay much attention to it. But then I realized it lasted the whole day! Ever since it happens every day and I hate! It´s almost impossible to stop the music, and the music changes – I just can recall any song and boom, it´s playing in my head…(it only stops when I focus on something else).
Also, as Gray said – the sweating and heart pounding – it happens to me as well. What specialist should I visit? Psychologist, neurologist, what´d you do?
Hi, Patrik
This is a tough one. As someone pointed out earlier, these seem to happen more to people who are musically inclined. What you are describing seems especially virulent. I’ve usually been able to stop one by completing the piece in my head (but then, my own problem has been short loops, quotes, of the the music playing over and over). If you are getting complete songs, and can only stop them by switching channels, I would suggest seeking help. The few techniques I’ve developed work for me, and for some others, but they’re more a palliative than a cure. For me the issue has always been sleep. I can get along with music in my head during the day, for me it’s night that’s the killer.
Good luck with this.
Hello everyone im a 21 years old guy who started with a earworm last week the song was “kill your heros” by awolnation, i was randomly listen to it while talking with a friend, my friend liked that song a lot and asked me to repeat it like 5 times, when we finally stopped listening to it i noticed that the song was stuck in my head, it was night so i didnt worried because sleep time was close and i tought that it would fade the next morning but it didnt.
Since that day now everysong i listen get stukc in my head replacing the last one, im really scared and desperate of this, and reading this forum i realized that many people have this issue, i would like to know if i this issue will fade away, im starting to have attention problems in class and even conversations because the lack of attention.
Thanks for the reply and sorry for my bad english,