Earworms

[chrishansenhome]

A BBC broadcast tonight called Material World (a regular BBC Radio 4 feature on science) had a section on earworms, a subject that's come up in this blog before. Well, there is a research project going on here in the UK about it and, if you're quick, you can get in on a drawing for £150 if you fill out their survey.

I have a regular Tuesday earworm of one (only one, never more than one) hymn from the Sunday Eucharist. It doesn't repeat the next time I hear that hymn, and it doesn't start at the same time as the Eucharist. It's delayed by two days to Tuesday. I expect it'll start tomorrow morning. It usually lasts for a couple of hours or maybe a day. I don't get it if I don't go to church.

The last really annoying one I had was Marblehead Forever, the "anthem" of my home town. I don't want another one so I am sincerely trying not to replay it in my head.

In any case, Tuesday is only 23 minutes away and, sure as shootin', I'll wake up with some earworm from Sunday Eucharist playing in my head.

Comments

[bigmacbear]

One of my more recent earworms -- triggered not so much aurally as visually -- has been that little bit of children's doggerel called "Comet", to the tune of the "Colonel Bogey March". You know:

Comet, it makes your mouth so clean
Comet, it makes your teeth so green
Comet, it makes you vomit
So buy some Comet and vomit today.