I woke up this morning with that old Four Seasons’ song, “Walk Like a Man,” stuck in my head. I don’t know why. I don’t particularly like it. I haven’t heard it lately. And yet there it was banging around between my ears all morning like a marble in a tin can.
I wish this was an isolated incident. But a few days ago I woke up to Blondie’s “The Tide is High.” And I recently spent an entire afternoon with Abba’s “Take a Chance on Me” going around and around in my mind. At least I like both of those.
It isn’t just music either. I saw a tow truck a few days back and spent the rest of the day silently reciting the words of a children’s book I last read to my son more than 20 years ago. “How many trucks can a tow truck tow. One, two, three, four I don’t know.” It is catchy. I’m sorry if it’s stuck in your head now too.
It’s all prompted me to go to that source of all knowledge, the internet, and research earworms. I’ve always thought that was an unfortunate name for those fragments of songs that lodge in our brains. I prefer to think I have an inefficient music streaming service in my head. Or a busted jukebox.
Anyway, I can’t tell you how relieved I was to learn that I’m not alone. I read that 98 percent of us admit to at least an occasional earworm. And I think the other two percent would admit it too if they were called something less disturbing.
I don’t know how it is for you, but often there’s no explanation for why a voice in my head starts singing, “We will, we will rock you” or “Don’t worry, be happy.”
Other times there’s an obvious explanation. When I had an ant infestation in my home last summer, I spent a week being pestered by an old children’s song. “The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah.”
And whenever my husband and I go on a road trip, I’m haunted by Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” for the first 50 to 100 miles. Later when I glance at the gas gauge and see it’s getting low, I start streaming Jackson Brown’s “Running on Empty” until we get to the gas station.
Now that I think about it, travel is one of my major earworm triggers. When I visited Boston several years ago, “Please Come to Boston” was running through my mind for the duration of the visit. And when we traveled to Amarillo, Texas a few years back my jukebox started playing “Amarillo by Morning” right after it finished with “On the Road Again” and it kept it up until we’d arrived.
I’m comfortable admitting all of this to you because, based on my research, there’s a good chance you spend your days with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Hakuna Matata” or some other catchy tune playing on your own busted jukebox.
But I’m embarrassed to admit that occasionally the music in my head doesn’t stay there and I start humming or even burst into song. It’s like living in a Broadway musical without the applause.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any statistics on how many other people suffer from this deluxe version of earworms. But I bet it’s around 100 percent of those within hearing distance of me.
Dorothy Rosby is the author of Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About, Humorous Essays on the Hassles of Our Time and other books. Contact her at www.dorothyrosby.com/contact.