So, what is your ear worm right now

[Soubriquet]

I’ve had If I Had You by Adam Lambert stuck in my head for a few days now. Good job I really like that song.

My guilty pleasure though is watching The Hillywood Show Pirates Of The Caribbean, because it uses this song on it. Hilly really does pull off Captain Jack. Mind you, she seems to pull off everything! A true chameleon

Ugh it's torture isn't it, having a song stuck that you actively dislike? I get it a lot, but thankfully never usually as badly as I got it during one bad spell, a few years ago.

My head would start playing "I'm walking on sunshine, woah-ohh, I'm walking on sunshine, woah-ohh, I'm walking on sunshine, woah-ohh", and rather than it then resolving to "And don't it feel good!" it would just KEEP ON WALKING ON SUNSHINING INSTEAD, with increasing tempo, settling at around double speed.

For hours at a time, nonstop, every day, sometimes all day. Four words and an exclamation, on endless musical repeat.

The tiniest thing (like seeing some sunshine, or thinking about walking) could set it off. It was so "loud" in my head I couldn't sleep. Sometimes I got so frustrated I'd yell and cry out and hit my pillow. At a fun singing group I attended, I begged them to remove that song from the pieces in rotation, in an attempt to remove at least one trigger. (To their credit, they did.)

This went on for several weeks.

If it wasn't for the fact that the intensity of that earworm was actually a bipolar mania symptom, I'd say that Katrina and the Waves themselves drove me to the edge of sanity, then sang me off the cliff. If I hated that song before, what I feel for it now cannot be described in human words.

It's odd, does anyone remember the year that the Booker prize was won by a story about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley? I bought the book and I really wanted to read it, but it was impossible because every time I started to read it, Bob Marley and the Wailers music would start up loudly in my head. Every. Single. Time. Loudly. I love Bob Marley's music but I just wanted to read to sodding book! In the end I hand to put the book away and not read it. It was really odd though, almost like a haunting.

Sorry about typos.

I don't remember the book barbra, but I can relate to not being able to concentrate because your earworms are too mentally loud.

An audiobook might cut through better?

Good thinking @BottleBottoms 😸

This

I've got this now! Thanks so much 🙄

The other trick I sometimes use if earworms are really interfering with my concentration, or trying to take over, is a very specific set of criteria for the "try listening to something else" technique.

I have instrumental music playing, something with a consistent volume level, a definite but not too distracting tune, no significant lyrics, preferably not something I know well, and played loud enough that my brain will struggle to overlay any headmusic (without being so loud that I can't focus on the book or whatever it is). Something like trance music fits the bill well for me, but everyone's preferences are different.

Abbot's Leigh.
It's a hymn tune I've been playing on the organ recently.

Ooh, stick you, your mama too (and your daddy!)

Bye bye love by The Cars, came up on my playlist earlier and now it's stuck

In hell I'll be in good company by the dead south.
I'm ok with this earworm because it's a pretty awesome song

You're on my mind, by Tom Misch. No idea why - it's only a tiny snippet, just going round and round and round...

I’m stuck with two at the moment. Miles Cyrus’ Flowers and the crab from Moana’s Shiny.

Taylor Swift, Antihero. It's me. I'm the problem, it's me. I spend too much time on TikTok.

Death on the stairs by the libertines.

“baby just kill me, no baby don’t kill me…”

Come Undone Duran Duran
Stripped Depeche Mode

More than words by Extreme, DS is on a nursing strike and the only thing that gets him to latch is singing it. I also have some kind of medical condition that has caused me to get Jingle Bells in my head every day for the last 25 years!

You Learn by Alanis Morisette
Glycerine by Bush
Bullet With Butterfly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins

'The Oldest Swinger In Town'... it's driving me potty!

It's in his kiss by Linda Lewis, RIP. Such an amazing voice.

A section of the Libera Me from Verdi's Requiem.

My choir is singing it soon and this four page chunk needs to be off book, so I'm singing/listening at every opportunity!

The opening song from Six

Bringing a touch of class to the thread