Earworms, Nothing More Than Earworms

[anarchist_nomad]

At the moment, my current earworm[*] is Quartet: A Model of Decorum and Tranquility from Chess. This is not terribly surprising, as I have been listening to the soundtrack quite a bit in the past week and a half!

The phenomenon of earworms has long interested me. Not so much the type that I am currently experiencing; I call that the "acute earworm" when it is composed of a song that one has recently been exposed to, especially repeatedly. I am more interested in what I call the "chronic earworm" -- songs that recur as earworms, even when there has been little or no repeated exposure to the song in recent experience.

I "suffer" from a few chronic earworms. For example, Suddenly Seymour, from Little Shop of Horrors, is an excellent example of an earworm that I have inflicted shared with those around me[**] on more than one occasion.

Dear friends, I am curious about your own experiences with these enigmatic creatures. Do you also suffer from earworms? If so, please to be sharing! What is your current -- or recent -- earworm? Do you also have chronic earworms? What are they?

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[*] For those gentle readers unfamiliar with the term, you can find a concise description of earworms here.

[**] Especially the denizens of the Event Horizon.

Comments

[perspicacious.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am totally afflicted with earworms, of both the acute and chronic variety. Dr. J and I always talk about having "jukebox brain" - which often sets off acute earworms. So, for example, someone tells me good morning - immediately "Good Morning" from Singing in the Rain is stuck in my head for the rest of the day. This is a common acute earworm for me - kind of a chronic/acute hybrid, really.

Current acute earworms include: the entire Christmas Caravan album by the Squirrel Nut Zippers (especially "Carolina Christmas," for rather obvious reasons); "Physical (You're So)" by Adam Ant; "Paper Bag" by Fiona Apple; "Alfred Hitchcock" by the Nields (I watched Rear Window for the first time the other day); the Into the Woods soundtrack (you're responsible for this one *grin*); "All I Care About" from the Chicago soundtrack. As you may note, I have an awful lot of music going on in the back of my head - pretty much constantly.

I have a fair number of chronic earworms as well. "Lola" - both the original Kinks version and the Raincoats' version; "Psycho Killer" by the Talking Heads; a fair amount of Ani DiFranco ("Shameless", "Both Hands", "Out of Habit", "Dilate" when I'm being mopey); "Do You Want to Know a Secret", "I'm so tired", "Your Mother Should Know" and "Rocky Raccoon" by the Beatles; "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes; "Step into my Office, Baby", "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" and "Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying" by Belle and Sebastian; "Hooked on a Feeling" (the ooga-chaka, Blue Swede version); so many more. I think the worst one is "The Lonely Goatherd", though - if I hear even the tiniest bit of it, it is stuck in my head for ages. There's a lot of oldies rattling around in there as well.

I have quite the internal cacophony at this point. *grin* So what are your earworms, both chronic and acute?