High-Tech Solution to Earworm Songs Discovered

April 26, 2017 7:10 AM

Got a song in your head and can't seem to get it out? Chew gum. Or do a puzzle, or listen to another song. (I personally find that listening to the complete earworm song works, but I know it doesn't work for everyone.)
posted by Etrigan (36 comments total)

CW: If you're easily suggestible, the article concludes with a list of the most common earworms.

My personal solution is trying to remember how the title music for X-Men: The Animated Series goes.
posted by zamboni at 7:21 AM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

The old theme for Hockey Night In Canada is widely recognized as an earworm countermeasure.
posted by Jode at 7:57 AM on April 26, 2017

I always use "Land of 1,000 Dances." In extreme cases, the Residents' version...
posted by AJaffe at 7:58 AM on April 26, 2017 [3 favorites]

At my ukulele group a few months ago we were discussing some earworm (probably the song we just finished playing) and one member of the group said- 'Oh try this song'.
We tried it, and it worked. It was even self-erasing. (Which is important)
It was so effective that by the next day, no one could remember what it was, including the suggester.

Anyway, I know there's something out there that works. If I ever find it again I'll have to write it down.
posted by MtDewd at 8:00 AM on April 26, 2017 [3 favorites]

I find that the theme songs from either "I Dream of Jeannie" or "Bewitched" are terrific for driving earworms out of my head: just quick, catchy little tunes with no words that linger in the corners of the mind.
posted by TheNudeApe at 8:06 AM on April 26, 2017

Listening to the H.R. Pufnstuf theme also works
posted by thelonius at 8:14 AM on April 26, 2017

Yellow Submarine. Always Yellow Submarine.
posted by davejay at 8:20 AM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Singing American Pie works for me.
posted by peeedro at 8:27 AM on April 26, 2017

This is a real public service, given the ABBA post below.
posted by allthinky at 8:33 AM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Theme from the Great Escape is my go-to to erase whatever else is in my head at that moment.
posted by TwoWordReview at 8:42 AM on April 26, 2017

Any song that has a clear and definitive ending usually defeats the earworm, because it gives the brain closure.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:42 AM on April 26, 2017

CW: If you're easily suggestible, the article concludes with a list of the most common earworms.

Let me save you a click, here's a list of the top twenty earworm songs:

We will rock you - Queen
Happy - Pharrell Williams
We are the Champions - Queen
I'm Gonna Be (500 miles) - Proclaimers
YMCA - Village People
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
Final Count Down - Europe
Living on a prayer - Bon Jovi
Jingle Bells
Who let the dogs out? - Baha Men
Gangnam Style - Psy
Never gonna give you up - Rick Astley
Don't stop believin' - Journey
Uptown funk - Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson
Shake it off - Taylor Swift
Beat it - Michael Jackson
Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs
The Time Warp - The Rocky Horror show
About the bass - Meghan Trainer
Karma Chameleon - Culture Club

no need to thank me.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:45 AM on April 26, 2017

I have had "Elementary, My Dear" from Schoolhouse Rock in my head for the last three days, so this is helpful. Sort of.

Kind of like how when I used to complain to my Dad about having a headache or a stomach ache, and he would offer to stomp on my foot to take my mind off it...
posted by Mchelly at 8:54 AM on April 26, 2017

Parent of toddlers edition:

Let it go - Frozen soundtrack
I like to move it - Will.I.Am
Shake it off - Taylor Swift
You're Welcome - Moana soundtrack
posted by piyushnz at 8:55 AM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

Also that list is worthless without Don't Worry, Be Happy and It's A Small World After All.

I would love to live in a world where my worst earworm was Living on a Prayer
posted by Mchelly at 8:55 AM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

I would love to live in a world where my worst earworm was Living on a Prayer

Well, you're halfway there...
posted by Etrigan at 8:59 AM on April 26, 2017 [13 favorites]

I sort of go the other way. Whenever I get an earworm, to me the best way to get rid of it is to sing it repeatedly for about 10 minutes. I have this theory that you cannot get rid of an earworm without having sung it about 44 times. So, the trick is to do it 44 times as an appeasement to the earworm gods and move on. Jujitzu it.
posted by AugustWest at 9:11 AM on April 26, 2017

I've heard "Champagne Supernova" is a rather effective earworm repellent.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 9:22 AM on April 26, 2017

I Have had Smooth by Santana stuck in my head pretty much since it was released. I've tried everything.

My second most extreme measure was to make a playlist of nothing but Smooth 100 times over. Didn't work.

My most extreme measure is I'm gong to see Santana live this week in the hopes of finally excorcising this tune.

I'll keep you posted.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:23 AM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

Low Rider is my own solvent for shit stuck in my head.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:28 AM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

And why aren't more of you posting remedies actually linking to the songs themselves dammit (I've had "sunshine in my pocket" stuck in there since 10 this morning)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:29 AM on April 26, 2017

PUNCH, BROTHERS! PUNCH WITH CARE! PUNCH IN THE PRESENCE OF THE PASSENJARE!
posted by Shmuel510 at 9:32 AM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

We have a little brass birdhouse we use as an outdoor decoration during the summer months and Every. Damn. Time. I take it out of the newspaper it's wrapped in I get They Might Be Giants-ed.

Not to put too fine a line on it, say I'm the only bee in your bonnet - put a little birdhouse in your soul

Great! I'm two weeks early this year.
posted by yhbc at 9:33 AM on April 26, 2017 [3 favorites]

I used to make fun of my dad for two main things: 1. Talking about food all the time, and 2. Having a million song triggers. There were words that you had to eliminate from your vocabulary almost entirely just to keep Dad from singing some usually horrible song. (My poor friend Lydia when we were really really young used to protest that she didn't have any tattoos.)

So of course these are the two main things that I do now. Talk about food and have song triggers. Those take up about 60% of my waking hours.

And there is a danged police truck in my city. I see it every couple of weeks or so, so that's one of my most frequent worms. Whenever I see that godforsaken truck, the guitar part starts up in my head and sticks around for at least a couple of hours.

Others include Gene Vincent's Be Bop a Lula, and Beck's Hollywood Freaks--I had that one for something like THREE MONTHS recently. I was falling asleep and waking up with that every single day and was only rid of it when I was actively doing something else. I seriously tried everything. It was bad. I tried everything. Nothing touched it. I'm really hoping I'm immune by now.

(I can give my adult son a bad bout of Apache just by texting him "Ho! Ho! Ho!" And this reminds me that I haven't been a big jerk to him in a while. Today should be the day I remind him that I care.)
posted by ernielundquist at 9:41 AM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Correction: I meant I had that Hollywood Freaks worm for three WEEKS, not months. I was fixing to say a month, then did some quick triangulation of life events and things, tried to correct it, and only made things worse. I hope I didn't just curse myself.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:50 AM on April 26, 2017

A few years ago I made a twitter account (linked in my profile) where I post all my earworms - somehow that seems to keep them from recurring too often. Hey Jude used to be a particular offender.
posted by moonmilk at 10:05 AM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Previously on Ask. (Bonus:the earworm tag on Ask and the blue)
posted by enfa at 10:10 AM on April 26, 2017

I use the Harry Potter theme to dispel earworms. Just remember it, go through it a few times, and the earworm is gone.

Which always feels weirdly like casting a spell in my head. "Earwormus expelliarmus!"
posted by MrVisible at 10:12 AM on April 26, 2017

Empire March from Star Wars. Stomp those earworms.
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:23 AM on April 26, 2017

My 9-year old daughter had her dance recital this weekend: a big everyone-onstage-at-once opening number, two dozen individual numbers, and then this monster ten-minute medley where the girls came on the stage in waves. The theme was "Icons [of pop music]" so we got an Eagles song ("Life in the Fast Lane"), and Elton John's "Your Song," and the Van Halen "You Really Got Me" (should've been the Kinks' original, but the last in charge thinks stuff from the 90s are Oldies Tracks) and I think Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" and ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man," and then...I am pretty sure like sixteen of the singles and the whole finale were Michael Jackson songs.

It was earworm after earworm after earworm, only interrupted by a couple of awful later MJ tracks (like "Scream" with his sister Janet).

I have had "PYT" running through my head since Sunday afternoon: when I wake up, as I try to go to bed, in the shower, while I drive... It's almost icepick time, man.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:56 AM on April 26, 2017

My last chance is to break out my usual sovereign remedy, sung as loudly as possible until hoarse.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:58 AM on April 26, 2017

My brief and not-very-notable career in the radio business included (thankfully only) a couple DJ gigs which exposed me to repeated playings of the worst earworms of the late '70s and early '80s... it was the Golden Age of the Bee Gees... but also one effective (for me, at least) counter-earworm: the instrumental opening to Baker Street. But don't get into the lyrics: "Just one more year and then you'll be happy" pretty much summed up my 'radio days'.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:43 PM on April 26, 2017

Last Saskatchewan Pirate, anyone?
posted by elizilla at 1:47 PM on April 26, 2017

Tension, apprehension,
And dissension have begun.
posted by Sand at 7:23 PM on April 26, 2017

my thing w/ getting songs stuck in my head is that it's tied to what room i'm in. I walk into the bathroom, one song will pop in my head for months. my bedroom, a different song. it's usually not a constant thing, just whenever i enter that room.
posted by broken wheelchair at 9:35 PM on April 27, 2017

broken wheelchair: So you hear different soundtracks as you move between areas.

Are you sure you're not trapped in a video game?
posted by zamboni at 6:29 AM on April 28, 2017