Does anyone else have music playing in their head all the time?

[WoIsMe]

I was chatting to a friend just now and I mentioned in passing that the music in my head was particularly loud today. She was really taken aback and told me that this isn't normal. It's got me wondering how many other people constantly have music playing in their head, apart from when there's external music playing. It's usually something I've listened to recently but random songs do pop in occasionally as well. I just had Symphony of Destruction by Megadeth which I don't think I've heard for years. Music is just always there in the background and it's complete songs or sometimes albums; it isn't like earworms where you get 20 seconds of something annoying playing over and over again. It also isn't mistakable for externally-played music so it isn't a condition such as MES where you get auditory hallucinations.

I know my DH has exactly the same thing and I'm pretty sure my dad did as well because he was always walking around singing random stuff like Gilbert and Sullivan songs but he never listened to anything like that. Does anyone else experience something similar or is it as unusual as my friend says?

It's called ear worms, learnt about it in psychology.

Yes. It’s always really loud in my head. Music is my career too, so when I’m learning something new it wakes me up in the night so I can REALLY get to know it. Most of the time my internal noisiness doesn’t bother me but that’s really annoying when it happens. It does usually mean that the piece is thoroughly learnt though!

Me too - my head is a often a very noisy place! Songs on repeat, sometimes I wake up with one in my head that I get the feeling has been playing while I was asleep (appropriately it was Amy Winehouse's 'In my Bed' yesterday morning). Also conversations with myself, or replaying conversations I've had with other people, sometimes in other languages, other times I get a phrase stuck in my head. I do sometimes long for some peace and quiet. But other times my head is quiet. I think it must be common though, because otherwise why the talk of internal monologues and earworms tunes? I don't think I have ADHD, but I have DC with it, so maybe?

I woke up with Chesney Hawkes, I am the one and only. Thank you, BBC4.

Internal monologues and ear worms are common but I guess its whether or not you can 'turn them off' when needed. I can't, even when I'm having a conversation with someone my brain is having its own conversation or singing a song at the same time and so I can't focus on the conversation no matter how hard I try.

Often the last track I heard- again and again 😩

Me! Every day, all day. I said to my husband what tune are you hearing today, and he was bewildered as he never hears music in his head. I mean there's even a word for it, it's an 'earworm', do it's obviously common.

Omg, this thread is shocking! I had no idea people had this, except maybe the odd musical savant? Do you hear the entire songs, as they are? The only way I can hear a song in my head is if I deliberately sing it in my head and so it's just my version of me singing it (badly) if that makes sense. You people are astonishing! Also, no wonder you might struggle with focus etc if you have music playing in your head. Also, if I get an 'earworm' it's just me singing a line from a song over and over in my head - it sometimes happens to me at night when I'm dehydrated.

It varies for me. Sometimes it’s like a record playing on repeat. Other times it’s more conscious and I’m thinking through it. (So driving I’ll be thinking different lyrics than the original as I think through what I’m doing or reflecting on some line’s shit driving.). Sometimes it’s a section on a loop. Once had “remember, remember, remember, remember…..” from Fame for about 3 days.

if I’m worried about my daughter I’ve noticed I’ll wake with a song or theme from one of the tv programmes or films she watched often as a toddler or young child.

Another one here! Always wake up with a themetune of the day. Usually songs I quite like, even if it’s not stuff I’d listen to (like the random hymns!). The most annoying is when it’s just a snippet and it’s stuck on loop and it’s like an itch I can’t scratch because I can’t think of what actual song it’s from. Luckily this doesn’t happen often. Considering getting tested for ADHD - I think I’d like to try if the busyness and noise can get switched off. (Also, can’t fall asleep without reading something.)

For me the music in my head isn't the same as an earworm.
When I have an earworm is usually because someone said something that made me think of that song. And I can usually get rid of it by listening to the song irl.
But the other music in my head is constant, random and doesn't go away. I also have voices/conversations going on in there. It's very loud.

Currently I've got one line from "Haus of Holbein" on repeat and conversations relating to a couple of people who have died recently. It's very loud.

Yes, it's like an internal radio. I thought most people did, I guess?

For me it's exactly the same as the real song, like a recording. I can hear all the instruments, melodies, but mostly it's the artist's voice and the notes they sing - sorry I don't know the technical term. But for example Adele often sings several notes in one word, if that makes sense? I can hear this perfectly.

It makes it really hard not to mimic accents when I sing though which is a bit embarrassing 😂 if I'm very familiar with a song sung in another accent eg Taylor Swift, a Disney song, then I have to really consciously make an effort to de-accent it if I want to sing in my own voice, and then it often comes across a bit flat and lacking in the emotion and passion of the original.

Not necessarily - I think for most people (on this thread at least), it's not earworms in the psychology sense, where the meaning is more likely to be associated with anxiety/intrusive thoughts or negative emotions of some sort.

For me, and many posters here, our 'internal jukebox' is a happy place and we'd be lost without it 🤣

I genuinely love my soundtrack 🤷‍♀️ I've never had depression/anxiety - but I do have tinnitus, and often wonder if my tuneful brain is my body trying to help drown out the dreadful ringing - if so, it's working a treat! 🎶 👌🏻

I have no idea. I just read the words but I have no voice in my head saying those words. My son has just asked me if I can say a sentence from Harry Potter in Voldemorte's voice (from the films that we have literally watched this week) and I've tried to hear them in his voice from each film to see if I can tell the difference but I can't. 🤷 But I can't do impressions either 😁😁

I'm feeling a bit left out now and wondering what I'm missing...

I do, it seems to be worse now I’m 40+, some days it’s constant and other days not, sometimes it’s annoying. I also have ADHD.

This is me - random music, epecially in bed, when walking the dog, when showering etc . I also have an extremely unrelenting internal monologue.

My husband has nothing. No internal monologue at all, no music. I cannot get over that. And he's the one who is neurodivergent.

My MIL had this and thought her neighbours were playing loud music, she was knocking at their doors in the middle of the night and arguing over the noise.

Turns out (in her case) it was a form of tinnitus- musical tinnitus.

Yes. I've never thought about it before but I absolutely do. Neurotypical as far as I know, but today's soundtrack seems to be a Breeders album from the 90s. I'm not remotely musical and can't sing a note.

Yep, always. It's not the same as an earworm - I get those sometimes too. Earworms almost grab your attention, whereas this is more like a radio playing quietly in the background. I'm so used to it that I can filter it out and sometimes momentarily think it's gone, but as soon as I consciously tune into it I realise, "Oh yeah, it's been that song all morning".

Wordsworth described

That inner eye
Which is the bliss of solitude

I see my inner music like that.

Yes, his dad (my DH) does, also one of DH's brothers is diagnosed with ADHD.

Yes but you can get it from either parent. You're just more likely to get it if your mother has ADHD than if it's your father that has ADHD

Me.. It's like Andrew Lloyd Webber lives in my head rent free

🎵It was red and yellow and green and violet and Blueeeeeeee 🎵