[Jan Strnad]

I had this idea for a story where a guy gets an ear worm stuck in his head...the musical kind, where some tune plays over and over, usually a tune you despise. I picked a particularly obnoxious song. Wrote the story. Edited. I like it.

And of course, now I have that damned tune stuck in my head!

Reaching for the ice pick....

 

[Klip]

Ha! That's funny. I'm very susceptible to ear worms, particularly if I'm stressed. For a while I had that Rick Astley song stuck in my head, like my subconscious was rick rolling me.

 

[Nick Endi Webb]

I had this idea for a story where a guy gets an ear worm stuck in his head...

All I could think about was Star Trek II when I read this.

KHAN!!!!!

 

[Bob Ryan]

Reaching for the ice pick....

Put the ice pick down, Jan, we can all help you get through this. Maybe we can replace whatever obnoxious song is in there now with something more soothing, something that will make you see how precious life is...how about...

HIGHWAY TO HELL!

Love ya! Mean it!

The other day I lived through having "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight" stuck in my head all day, so it can happen. This, too, shall pass.

Thanks for the comedy break. We'll be looking in on you periodically...Bob (nice idea for your story, by the way, I want to read it.)

 

[Nathalie Hamidi]

My nightmare song stuck in my head is the one for the Snorkles in French.

And I'm off singing it in my head for the next two weeks...

 

[Victoria Champion]

The way to cure this phenomenon is to sing a different song out loud.

 

[60169]

Ha! That's funny. I'm very susceptible to ear worms, particularly if I'm stressed. For a while I had that Rick Astley song stuck in my head, like my subconscious was rick rolling me.

I made the mistake of mentioning Never Gonna Give You Up in Lucky Man, and every time I went over the story again, my subconscious rick rolled me for hours... next time, I think I'll mention a song I actually like.

 

[MegSilver]

 

[AndreSanThomas]

There's a great non-fiction management book called The Care and Feeding of Ideas. Unfortunately, out of print but worth getting a used copy if you're in business and working with teams.

Anyway, the book is written by Bill Backer. He's an ad guy who wrote many of the jingles that shaped America. The main story running through the book is how he got one particular commerical off the ground, from the original idea on a delayed plane in an airport in Ireland to getting it filmed and on the air in the US.

The particular commercial and the song he wrote for it is- I'd like to teach the world to sing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-Qiyklq-Q

Only bad part about the book is that you're singing that for a week afterwards.

 

[Lummox JR]

Reminds me of a bit I wrote into One Woke Up:

It was normal, everyday human coping humor, like a terminal patient quipping that at least they would finally get It's a Small World out of their head.
Hi, I'm your brain. We had an agreement you would never mention that again. Good luck sleeping tonight, pal.

 

[swolf]

I just have to sing the first few lines of 'In the Ghetto' to plant it in my wife's head for the day.

Yes, newlyweds, that's what marriage boils down to - finding ways to stick it to your spouse (and not in a good way.)   

 

[Jena H]

Ugh, I hate the phrase "ear worm." It sounds disgusting, like something that crawled inside the auditory canal. Plus, I think it's inappropriate. I think "brain worm" might be more fitting, as it's not like the song-that-won't-be-forgotten is actually in your ear, it's in your head. I know, brain worm doesn't really sound any better than ear worm, but still, the fact that the song isn't really in your ear to begin with kind of makes a lie out of it.

And this concludes today's version of Things I Waste My Time Thinking About When I Should Be Doing Something More Constructive.

 

[AgnesWebb]

There was a story about auditory hallucination on NPR last month! Was fascinating.

 

[WG McCabe]

I just have to sing the first few lines of 'In the Ghetto' to plant it in my wife's head for the day.

Yes, newlyweds, that's what marriage boils down to - finding ways to stick it to your spouse (and not in a good way.)

Awesome. I do the same to mine but with Yellow Submarine. 'In the town where I was born, lived a man who---" and she is running from the room with her hands clapped over her ears.

 

[PeggyI]

men-a men-a, dup do da do do...

 

[Alain Gomez]

The way to cure this phenomenon is to sing a different song out loud.

I'm a music teacher and this does work. The problem is that I have to hum under my breath constantly so it makes me sounds like an insane nutcase. On the plus side, it does help cultivate a healthy dose of fear in my students. Is she or isn't she stable......

 

[Nathalie Hamidi]

OMAGAD I HAVE ALL OF THEM STUCK ON LOOP NOW
THINK OF THE CHILDREN

 

[NottiThistledore]

This made me think of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man!

 

[George Berger]

All I could think about was Star Trek II when I read this.

And all I could think about was The Bookman's Wake, which features a woman named Eleanor Rigby, and the song of the same name.

--George, who once had Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" stuck in his head for a week...

 

[AndreSanThomas]

I'm a music teacher and this does work. The problem is that I have to hum under my breath constantly so it makes me sounds like an insane nutcase. On the plus side, it does help cultivate a healthy dose of fear in my students. Is she or isn't she stable......

I had a high school physics teacher who used to periodically get bubbles out of her closet, blow them in the classroom for a few minutes and then return to her desk (and her sentence or whatever she was doing) without a word or any acknowledgement of it. None of us wanted to meet her in any dark alleys or on a full moon.