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I specifically avoid viral earworm songs because I am very prone to getting them stuck in my head. I can have the same song playing "in the background" non-stop

I specifically avoid viral earworm songs because I am very prone to getting them stuck in my head. I can have the same song playing "in the background" non-stop in my mind for days. I have songs in my dreams and I'll wake up with them still playing in my head. Sometimes it will just be a single bar of a song, or just a piece of it looping. To this day, I have never once listened to "Chocolate Rain" or Rebecca Black's "Friday" because I fear never being able to turn them off. (I avoided Taylor Swift for, like a decade, but now just thinking about means I've got "Shake it Off" playing.) Writing this out now makes me realize how weird this all sounds...

enobrev 7y ago
I have the exact same experience. It may even, unintentionally, be the _reason_ I don't listen to Pop music. It's generally not even a whole song - usually not even the chorus. I'll get a 2-4 second loop in my head of some insignificant section of a crappy song for 2 or 3 whole days. Like you, it will sometimes start when I'm sleeping. I won't remember much of the dream, but the song is still there, echoing as it was in whatever setting my dream took place.
Tainnor 7y ago
Thank you for reminding me of Chocolate Rain... :/
hnick 7y ago
I heard a parody of a Justin Bieber song about 4 days ago and it's still playing, send help. Since I don't know the song it is of course just the chorus.
henrikschroder 7y ago
I also get ear worms, although not as bad as you seem to get them. One trick that works for me is to over-saturate your brain with it. Got an annoying song on your mind? Find it in spotify, put on headphones, and listen to it on repeat until you're sick of it.
- munificent 7y ago
  Funny anecdote. Back when I worked at EA, a couple of guys hacked together a system to share music on the internal LAN. (This was before the days of Spotify and friends.) Everyone would put their ripped albums on it and anyone could listen to anyone's stuff. It was pretty rad. They also added some metrics tracking so you could look people up and see how many different albums they'd listened to, how many times, etc. There were leaderboards for who could cover the most stuff. I thought it would be funny to "win" by listening to "Butterfly" by Smile.dk[0] more than any other song had been listened to. It listened to it on a loop for weeks. I, for reasons I cannot really explain years later, actually did listen to it and not just let it play at zero volume. It was a weird experiment in neurological satiation. At some point, it no longer annoyed because it just was, like the sound of my own heartbeat. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzcvRDWgRIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzcvRDWgRIE

enobrev 7y ago

I have the exact same experience. It may even, unintentionally, be the _reason_ I don't listen to Pop music. It's generally not even a whole song - usually not even the chorus. I'll get a 2-4 second loop in my head of some insignificant section of a crappy song for 2 or 3 whole days. Like you, it will sometimes start when I'm sleeping. I won't remember much of the dream, but the song is still there, echoing as it was in whatever setting my dream took place.

Tainnor 7y ago

Thank you for reminding me of Chocolate Rain... :/

hnick 7y ago

I heard a parody of a Justin Bieber song about 4 days ago and it's still playing, send help. Since I don't know the song it is of course just the chorus.

henrikschroder 7y ago

I also get ear worms, although not as bad as you seem to get them. One trick that works for me is to over-saturate your brain with it. Got an annoying song on your mind? Find it in spotify, put on headphones, and listen to it on repeat until you're sick of it.

munificent 7y ago
Funny anecdote. Back when I worked at EA, a couple of guys hacked together a system to share music on the internal LAN. (This was before the days of Spotify and friends.) Everyone would put their ripped albums on it and anyone could listen to anyone's stuff. It was pretty rad. They also added some metrics tracking so you could look people up and see how many different albums they'd listened to, how many times, etc. There were leaderboards for who could cover the most stuff. I thought it would be funny to "win" by listening to "Butterfly" by Smile.dk[0] more than any other song had been listened to. It listened to it on a loop for weeks. I, for reasons I cannot really explain years later, actually did listen to it and not just let it play at zero volume. It was a weird experiment in neurological satiation. At some point, it no longer annoyed because it just was, like the sound of my own heartbeat. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzcvRDWgRIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzcvRDWgRIE