I don’t know about you, but I am very prone to
earworms. I probably am singing a song in my head pretty much any minute
of the day, just that by now I don’t pay them so much notice anymore.
However, a few songs are particularly loud in
my head. And persistent. And cannot be ignored that easily. This is not
necessarily a good thing, if you were thinking that humming a tune just
testifies to a happy nature. Especially when it’s a song that I don’t
even like, but just won’t leave my head, happy
does not factor in much.
So where do these songs come from? Songs I hear in
passing are an obvious source of course. Which can be tricky, coming
back to the crap songs that sometimes stick and me then having to find
another earworm just to purge the crap song from
my head. Actually a good and effective remedy. Fight fire with fire, or
rather earworm with earworm. Once you have another earworm, one that
you like, you will continue singing it for a while, but after some time
they slowly fade, without you spending long
and agonising moments fighting a crap song that, just because you hate
it so much, will get renewed energy every moment you notice it.
Also, in my case, a sentence or even just a word
might do it. Almost any sentence can trigger a song. Pretty much
everything anybody says has probably been used in a song. And oh so
often I find myself listening to someone speak and suddenly
breaking out in song in my head with the same words. Or word. Such as
Rotterdam. That alone will, and does very often, trigger The Beautiful
South. And since I know the song so well it usually takes me a while to
be done with it, as I will work my way through
the entire lyrics. When do you ever hear Rotterdam mentioned you ask?
Well, my problem is that my manfriend is from Rotterdam, so mentions are
plenty and frequent, and I don’t stand a chance trying to avoid it.
Funnily enough, I have never been to Rotterdam,
so other than a vague knowledge of where I might find it on the map I
have nothing other than the song to associate with it, which probably
makes this earworm even more persistent.
Another favourite of mine, or rather my head, is
Wasn’t Built to Get up at this Time. Remember that one? This I sing
almost every morning. When I was at uni, the radio station my alarm
clock was tuned to played it EVERY morning when my
alarm went off for weeks. Very appropriate I suppose. Thing is, even
now, decades after, I still sing this thing most mornings, just for the
simple fact of it. Me and mornings, yeah, well, that’s a whole different
story, and not a happy one let me tell you.
So just to iterate the point, no I Wasn’t Built to Get up at this Time.
Just a few examples, but I guess you get the
picture. Picture yourself in a boat on the river, with tangerine trees
and marmalade skies, somebody calls you… So much for that!!
