Ear Worming

This is a musing blog post, to do with the phenomena of ‘ear worming’. Or is it “earworm”? Either way, I’m hugely susceptible to ear worming.  It only takes the title of a song. A few bars of a song. Sometimes a lyric or two, and that is it. I’m ear wormed.

Sometimes I don’t mind – if it’s a particularly good song, then happy days. But I can get songs stuck in my head for days and days and days. Often just one or two lines, over and over again.  Phil Collins songs are particularly good at ear worming.  I hate Phil Collins, with his nasty, squeaky, whiny voice.  All it takes as well with Phil Collins is an opening bar, and that is it.  He’s penetrated your brain, and you’re suddenly a slave to the Spawn of the Devil.

I’ve googled to see if there’s a reason why I’m so susceptible. I’m sure I read once that there is a link between ASD in females and ear worming, but I haven’t been able to find that link again.  I have found links to research that suggests that females are just generally more susceptible anyway.  I’ve also found links to suggest that sufferers of OCD are more susceptible to ear worms – that does make some sense.  I’d add a link in here, but WP doesn’t seem to like me on this machine. You may just have to google it yourself…..or I might edit the blog post when I’m on a different device/computer/laptop!

So ok, I’m female. I don’t have OCD, but I do have little obsessions with certain things being done in certain ways.  That’s not OCD.  Those obsessions go hand in hand with my ASD traits.  Things like the switches. The windscreen wipers. The food texture issues. The time thing.  Loud voice noise.  Explosions and bangs.  There’s a few more, but there’s also an alarm going off at the moment which is disturbing my brain and train of thought.  Maybe the ear worm thing goes along with those traits. 

It can get really annoying.  I got ear wormed by a song from a Facebook status.  And it wasn’t even the actual song lyrics! It was just suggestive.  My eldest daughter tried to ear worm me with Swagger Jagger this morning. She failed.  I’m no re-reading those two words………just in case.  This blog post is inspired by my friend Cat, who tried to get Westlife into my head (on Facebook) today.  Cheers Cat – it hasn’t worked 😛  At the moment, there’s no song. There’s just “bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee” of this damned door alarm.

Off the topic of ear worm, but I just reminded myself about a dream I had last night.  I couldn’t remember how old I am (this isn’t unusual – it’s often a surprise to me that I am as old as I am!).  I couldn’t remember if I was 37 or 38.  And I mean, I really couldn’t remember!  I ended up having to calculate it…..with a calculator.  And even then I was trying to do it the wrong way round (birth year minus current year does not equal your age!).  I wonder what that dream was all about……Hmmmm.

I wish I wasn’t so susceptible, because it can really drive me up the wall at times.  I love music, but the repetitive nature of the ear worm is frustrating.  Even worse if it is a song I hate, or Phil Collins.  If there is a cure for this, I would love to hear it.  It’s not even like I’ve ever been able to push an ear wormed song out with a different song.  It doesn’t work, and the ear wormed one comes back and laughs at me. Forever stuck, I am 😦