4 ms·

> In 1999, McCartney recorded a haunting cover version of an obscure song called No Other Baby. He’d had the song in his head for years without knowing who reco

> In 1999, McCartney recorded a haunting cover version of an obscure song called No Other Baby. He’d had the song in his head for years without knowing who recorded it or who it was written by. Whenever he sang it to people, nobody knew it. Only after recording it did he discover that the song, or at least the version of it, was by a skiffle group called The Vipers, who released it as a single in 1958, the year after John met Paul (as it turns out, the record was, rather remarkably, produced by George Martin). Paul said he never owned the record, which means he would have heard it on the radio, or in a record store listening booth, what - once, twice? Yet forty years later, he remembered all the verses, as well as the refrain, which goes, I don’t want no other baby but you….I don’t want no other baby but you… This kind of memory is certainly possible. And from what I've seen of McCartney - he has a vast repertoire of songs he knows (not just his own) - it seems almost certain that he has this talent. I suspect it's actually a relatively common ability though. I have family members who can remember both the tune and the lyrics of songs after 1 or 2 listens through. This just isn't so noticeable because they're not musicians. In general, I find what people find easy to remember a fascinating topic. my personal ability to remember song lyrics (and in general auditory information) is awful - I actually can't remember the entire lyrics to single song. I'm sure I could memorise some if I really tried, but it would take me hours of conscious. effort. On the other hand I often recall visual or written information from a single glance, and am very good at book learning and retaining an understanding of system and concepts.

cardiffspaceman 4y ago
The power of ad jingles is often attributed to songs being easy to memorize. According to legend that was the core idea for Sesame Street teaching things with songs and music. But I am sure I don’t remember nearly as many songs as musicians do, never mind McCartney
coliveira 4y ago
Yes, this is not so surprising. I remember songs I heard in my infancy and never again. I also didn't have a record. I guess people find this surprising because they live in an era where you can find any song you want (the already common thought of "how people did this before smart phones...").
asciimov 4y ago
In high school I got rather adept at memorizing our marching band music. By my senior year I could play a song once or twice, and not have to look at it again for the rest of the semester. While this kind of skill is nice to have, there is a curse to this kind of musical ability. I often find myself humming songs or fragments that I cannot place. Worse you cant just hum or whistle the tune into some app and have it tell you the song. And it's maddening when you know you don't have it quite right. For example, for years I had a reoccurring little tune stuck in my head. I had nothing to go on other than a couple of bars of the song that repeated. One day I finally(!) figured it out when I got out an old copy of NES Mega Man, and selected Cutmans stage. The cutman theme had been stuck in my head for years, and it was quite the relief to know what the song was.
- pulvinar 4y ago
  >Worse you cant just hum or whistle the tune into some app and have it tell you the song. I've had reasonable luck with folktunefinder, not for humming, but for tapping in a snippet as notes or a rhythm.
  - tiagod 4y ago
    Google lens audio search works pretty well for humming, not so much for whistling
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago
      No doubt when corporate vultures arrived for their cut.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  The article says McCartney had a similar problem with a song, and only found out which song it was when he recorded and released his own version!
- dualboot 4y ago
  Same, but it started in middle school for me. I could only read a piece of music once.
forgotmypw17 4y ago
I think what contributes to this ability is already knowing a number of songs, and being able to remember them as "systems" rather than individual notes and words. Similarly, it is easier for someone who plays often to remember a chess game.
svachalek 4y ago
Yeah I'm always impressed when someone is like, the dance is like this and this and this and then it seems the whole room got it except me. But for most of my life (as I'm aging I'm losing it somewhat) I pretty much only had to read something once to remember it forever. Never understood the process of "studying". Lebron James has been remarked upon for his ability to remember practically any play of any game he's ever been in (and many that he hasn't) in precise detail. And actress Marilu Henner can basically remember every detail of her entire life, a condition called hyperthermesia. I think superior memory is an underestimated driver of successful people.
- colordrops 4y ago
  I had what was probably hyperthymesia until I got into college. Lots of drinking, drugs, experiences, illnesses and whatnot and now I'm almost 50 and can't remember much of what happened a couple hours ago. It's like Flowers for Algernon but in slow motion so not as painful.
  - enobrev 4y ago
    Coming around to my mid 40s and I can say the same with the same approximate reasons. I used to throw events with tens to hundreds of people as a teenager and I could remember the names of every guest including anecdotes about them. Even weeks after the event. Now it takes hearing a name about 15 time on several occasions for it to stick. I need to write down everything these days.
- dav_Oz 4y ago
  >Lebron James has been remarked upon for his ability to remember practically any play of any game he's ever been in (and many that he hasn't) in precise detail. And actress Marilu Henner can basically remember every detail of her entire life, a condition called hyperthermesia. I think superior memory is an underestimated driver of successful people. I think it depends. There is certainly a balance to be struck here. In the case of hyperthermesia its selectivity (tightly coupled to autobiographical details) makes it quite different from ordinary memorization: >Even those with a high level of hyperthymesia do not remember exactly everything in their lives or have "perfect memory". Studies have shown that it is a selective ability, as shown by Price's case, and they can have comparative difficulty with rote memorization and therefore cannot apply their ability to school and work.[0] The short story Funes el memorioso by Jorge Luis Borges - who explores this theme[1] quite radically in his typical style - is imv particularly enlightening. In short: A certain amount of "forgetting" (you don't want to remember all details at all times) helps to consolidate and facilitates to see "things" in a new light. In a sense sleep itself (biologically hardcoded) fulfills a very large part of that function. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia#Difficulties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia#Difficulties [1]https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/borges-memory-funes-the-memorious/ https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/borges-memory-funes-the-m...
j7ake 4y ago
An analogous scenario would be that Magnus Carlsen can look at a chess board where pieces are well advanced and know when that historic event happened. Steph curry can tell you the dates and plays and sequences from one still image of a video highlight. Cristiano Ronaldo can head the ball into the goal with his eyes closed.
mstade 4y ago
> I suspect it's actually a relatively common ability though. I have family members who can remember both the tune and the lyrics of songs after 1 or 2 listens through. This just isn't so noticeable because they're not musicians. I'm like this, more or less, and I'm no musician or singer. If I hear a song, I can't not hear the lyrics, and I'll remember them and the melody after a listen or two. It's great for music quizzes where you have to figure out the name of a song or artist, because if they only play a short bit I can usually fill in, to help my team mates figure out the answer. I also tend to recall numbers quite easily. Faces too, but tell me your name however and I'll forget it in about 7 seconds.
fsckboy 4y ago
> Paul said he never owned the record, which means he would have heard it on the radio, or in a record store listening booth or in a discotheque, or in George Martin's living room, or other people had the record and he heard it at parties. People used to get together to play records. I'm not doubting he has a good memory, and especially for music, but he could have heard the song many times.
- rory 4y ago
  Yeah the article treats George Martin producing it like a cool coincidence. But it seems more likely that he heard the song, perhaps many times, because Martin played it.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    It's not like the Beatles and George Martin socialized all that much, to the extent of "come over to my place and listen to records". They both had insanely busy schedules for years, and were at their creative heights. I doubt Martin even remembered much about that particular song, given how many he'd worked on, even by the mid 60s.
- 72deluxe 4y ago
  Accidentally hearing a tune is also the case for lawsuits, eg. Coldplay / Satriani from years ago.
WalterBright 4y ago
When I was young, there was a song I'd sing Beelentzin Gluejeez which I'd drive my mom mad singing. It wasn't until decades later I realized it was Venus in Blue Jeans.
garyrob 4y ago
When I was 9 my Dad took me to see "Those Magnificent Young Men In Their Flying Machines," an entertaining movie for a 9-year-old. (Which I was in 1965 when it came out.) I knew the theme song by heart, music and lyrics, after only being exposed to it in the movie, and remembered it years later. That's the only time I can think of when I had anything like that kind of ability except for one: I was watching TV, still as a kid, and Harry Belafonte sang Leonard Cohen's song Suzanne. For years after I would sing the chorus to people, asking if they knew who had written it because I wanted to hear more from the writer. Finally when I was at summer camp a counselor told me it was by a guy named Leonard Cohen. As soon as I got home I got an LC album and I've been a huge fan ever since, and have played and sung Suzanne myself on guitar for people many times.
samstave 4y ago
I cannot remember a single song lyric... I can recall every single password ive ever typed into a computer ; FblQ00Ho --> First auto generated ISP password to me from ix.netcom.com in ~1995 or so... - im not some weird serial killer/hacker doo-dad ... im just telling you my memory fn weirdness... I DONT WANT THIS ABILITY but its not an _ability_ Its just an memory mech -- I know how to lucid dream and memorize... but its really fn hard. There are signals that tell you when youre lucid... I have two no, three specifics which tell me I am lucid... Yall gunna hate this, but.... there are lucid dreamers watching you... IN GOOD WAYS.
- samstave 4y ago
  Just in case anyone else has any of the callings to determine if they are LUCID dreaming (which means that you can take mental thought over your dreams) [PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO READ THIS ASIDE] ;; 'On Hoffman's 100th BDAY AND he had just died ; [THIS IS IMPORTANT TO YC] - [[HOFFMAN IS TO NETWORKING (THE INTERNERNET) AS OPPENHEIMER WAS TO THE MANHATTAN PROJECT]] -- So Hoffman invented LSD One of the founders of CISCO stated : "We wouldnt have even discovered RIP or BGP is we hadn't done LSD..." Do you know where DOS was from.

cardiffspaceman 4y ago

The power of ad jingles is often attributed to songs being easy to memorize. According to legend that was the core idea for Sesame Street teaching things with songs and music. But I am sure I don’t remember nearly as many songs as musicians do, never mind McCartney

coliveira 4y ago

Yes, this is not so surprising. I remember songs I heard in my infancy and never again. I also didn't have a record. I guess people find this surprising because they live in an era where you can find any song you want (the already common thought of "how people did this before smart phones...").

asciimov 4y ago

In high school I got rather adept at memorizing our marching band music. By my senior year I could play a song once or twice, and not have to look at it again for the rest of the semester. While this kind of skill is nice to have, there is a curse to this kind of musical ability. I often find myself humming songs or fragments that I cannot place. Worse you cant just hum or whistle the tune into some app and have it tell you the song. And it's maddening when you know you don't have it quite right. For example, for years I had a reoccurring little tune stuck in my head. I had nothing to go on other than a couple of bars of the song that repeated. One day I finally(!) figured it out when I got out an old copy of NES Mega Man, and selected Cutmans stage. The cutman theme had been stuck in my head for years, and it was quite the relief to know what the song was.

pulvinar 4y ago
>Worse you cant just hum or whistle the tune into some app and have it tell you the song. I've had reasonable luck with folktunefinder, not for humming, but for tapping in a snippet as notes or a rhythm.
- tiagod 4y ago
  Google lens audio search works pretty well for humming, not so much for whistling
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    No doubt when corporate vultures arrived for their cut.
nicoburns 4y ago
The article says McCartney had a similar problem with a song, and only found out which song it was when he recorded and released his own version!
dualboot 4y ago
Same, but it started in middle school for me. I could only read a piece of music once.

forgotmypw17 4y ago

I think what contributes to this ability is already knowing a number of songs, and being able to remember them as "systems" rather than individual notes and words. Similarly, it is easier for someone who plays often to remember a chess game.

svachalek 4y ago

Yeah I'm always impressed when someone is like, the dance is like this and this and this and then it seems the whole room got it except me. But for most of my life (as I'm aging I'm losing it somewhat) I pretty much only had to read something once to remember it forever. Never understood the process of "studying". Lebron James has been remarked upon for his ability to remember practically any play of any game he's ever been in (and many that he hasn't) in precise detail. And actress Marilu Henner can basically remember every detail of her entire life, a condition called hyperthermesia. I think superior memory is an underestimated driver of successful people.

colordrops 4y ago
I had what was probably hyperthymesia until I got into college. Lots of drinking, drugs, experiences, illnesses and whatnot and now I'm almost 50 and can't remember much of what happened a couple hours ago. It's like Flowers for Algernon but in slow motion so not as painful.
- enobrev 4y ago
  Coming around to my mid 40s and I can say the same with the same approximate reasons. I used to throw events with tens to hundreds of people as a teenager and I could remember the names of every guest including anecdotes about them. Even weeks after the event. Now it takes hearing a name about 15 time on several occasions for it to stick. I need to write down everything these days.
dav_Oz 4y ago
>Lebron James has been remarked upon for his ability to remember practically any play of any game he's ever been in (and many that he hasn't) in precise detail. And actress Marilu Henner can basically remember every detail of her entire life, a condition called hyperthermesia. I think superior memory is an underestimated driver of successful people. I think it depends. There is certainly a balance to be struck here. In the case of hyperthermesia its selectivity (tightly coupled to autobiographical details) makes it quite different from ordinary memorization: >Even those with a high level of hyperthymesia do not remember exactly everything in their lives or have "perfect memory". Studies have shown that it is a selective ability, as shown by Price's case, and they can have comparative difficulty with rote memorization and therefore cannot apply their ability to school and work.[0] The short story Funes el memorioso by Jorge Luis Borges - who explores this theme[1] quite radically in his typical style - is imv particularly enlightening. In short: A certain amount of "forgetting" (you don't want to remember all details at all times) helps to consolidate and facilitates to see "things" in a new light. In a sense sleep itself (biologically hardcoded) fulfills a very large part of that function. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia#Difficulties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia#Difficulties [1]https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/borges-memory-funes-the-memorious/ https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/borges-memory-funes-the-m...

j7ake 4y ago

An analogous scenario would be that Magnus Carlsen can look at a chess board where pieces are well advanced and know when that historic event happened. Steph curry can tell you the dates and plays and sequences from one still image of a video highlight. Cristiano Ronaldo can head the ball into the goal with his eyes closed.

mstade 4y ago

> I suspect it's actually a relatively common ability though. I have family members who can remember both the tune and the lyrics of songs after 1 or 2 listens through. This just isn't so noticeable because they're not musicians. I'm like this, more or less, and I'm no musician or singer. If I hear a song, I can't not hear the lyrics, and I'll remember them and the melody after a listen or two. It's great for music quizzes where you have to figure out the name of a song or artist, because if they only play a short bit I can usually fill in, to help my team mates figure out the answer. I also tend to recall numbers quite easily. Faces too, but tell me your name however and I'll forget it in about 7 seconds.

fsckboy 4y ago

> Paul said he never owned the record, which means he would have heard it on the radio, or in a record store listening booth or in a discotheque, or in George Martin's living room, or other people had the record and he heard it at parties. People used to get together to play records. I'm not doubting he has a good memory, and especially for music, but he could have heard the song many times.

rory 4y ago
Yeah the article treats George Martin producing it like a cool coincidence. But it seems more likely that he heard the song, perhaps many times, because Martin played it.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  It's not like the Beatles and George Martin socialized all that much, to the extent of "come over to my place and listen to records". They both had insanely busy schedules for years, and were at their creative heights. I doubt Martin even remembered much about that particular song, given how many he'd worked on, even by the mid 60s.
72deluxe 4y ago
Accidentally hearing a tune is also the case for lawsuits, eg. Coldplay / Satriani from years ago.

WalterBright 4y ago

When I was young, there was a song I'd sing Beelentzin Gluejeez which I'd drive my mom mad singing. It wasn't until decades later I realized it was Venus in Blue Jeans.

garyrob 4y ago

When I was 9 my Dad took me to see "Those Magnificent Young Men In Their Flying Machines," an entertaining movie for a 9-year-old. (Which I was in 1965 when it came out.) I knew the theme song by heart, music and lyrics, after only being exposed to it in the movie, and remembered it years later. That's the only time I can think of when I had anything like that kind of ability except for one: I was watching TV, still as a kid, and Harry Belafonte sang Leonard Cohen's song Suzanne. For years after I would sing the chorus to people, asking if they knew who had written it because I wanted to hear more from the writer. Finally when I was at summer camp a counselor told me it was by a guy named Leonard Cohen. As soon as I got home I got an LC album and I've been a huge fan ever since, and have played and sung Suzanne myself on guitar for people many times.

samstave 4y ago

I cannot remember a single song lyric... I can recall every single password ive ever typed into a computer ; FblQ00Ho --> First auto generated ISP password to me from ix.netcom.com in ~1995 or so... - im not some weird serial killer/hacker doo-dad ... im just telling you my memory fn weirdness... I DONT WANT THIS ABILITY but its not an _ability_ Its just an memory mech -- I know how to lucid dream and memorize... but its really fn hard. There are signals that tell you when youre lucid... I have two no, three specifics which tell me I am lucid... Yall gunna hate this, but.... there are lucid dreamers watching you... IN GOOD WAYS.

samstave 4y ago
Just in case anyone else has any of the callings to determine if they are LUCID dreaming (which means that you can take mental thought over your dreams) [PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO READ THIS ASIDE] ;; 'On Hoffman's 100th BDAY AND he had just died ; [THIS IS IMPORTANT TO YC] - [[HOFFMAN IS TO NETWORKING (THE INTERNERNET) AS OPPENHEIMER WAS TO THE MANHATTAN PROJECT]] -- So Hoffman invented LSD One of the founders of CISCO stated : "We wouldnt have even discovered RIP or BGP is we hadn't done LSD..." Do you know where DOS was from.