ON EARWORMS

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
******Percy Bysshe Shelley

HANK: I had an erudite and thoughtful idea for this week, I really did. All based on a Gail Caldwell column called Lingua Fracta. But then I read that RO's current favorite song is Walking After Midnight by Patsy Cline. A song I love, too. So I started humming it, and thinking about it. And that was days ago. And now it's in my way. I think they call them "earworms."

Now that you've heard that term, you can’t get it out of your head, right? And that’s exactly why I can’t listen to music when I write.

In the 60's I insisted I could not do my homework without listening to music. I had my little transistor radio, and I would put that plastic earpiece in, and bop around to Da Doo Ron Ron or I Get Around or It’s My Party. Dancing in the Street. Anything Beatles.

Today. I'm a TV reporter, have been for 30 years, and there’s not a moment of my workday when the television is not on. Sometimes three of them, all turned to different stations, all humming and buzzing in the background. And I ignore it, until my brain (is it the hypothalamus?) picks up on a word or phrase or sound that drags me to the remote to zap up the volume. Extraneous noise? Nope, it’s just the music of the news, and I’m used to it and embrace it.

But at home, writing, I cannot, cannot listen to music. It’s the earworm thing.

What’s an earworm? Let’s say you’re in the grocery, and that Muzak is on. Just in the background. And you have the misfortune to hear "It’s A Small World after All." Ahhhhh. That darn song is going to stick in your brain, humming over and over, forever. It’s an earworm.

How about Saturday in the Park by Chicago? (Saturday, in the park, I think it was the fourth of July…) Ah…stop. Oh Mickey, you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind… There’s a commercial for sour cream about "a dollop of daisy." Have you heard that? I heard it once, and sang it for about a week.

Hey, Macarena.

And so, I work in silence. If a song has words, they stick in my brain and play where my own words are supposed to be.
So can you manage music when you read or write?

JAN:
Not only can I NOT work with music on in the room, I can't work if the construction guys at my neighbor's house are blaring the radio as they install new garage doors. Really, the power tools don't bother me, but I've had to go next door and beg them to turn off the music.

I think it's called EASILY DISTRACTED. Or maybe -- Rather-be-listening-to-the-lyrics-than-writing-this-scene. But it's odd because I spent many years writing in a newsroom -- which is loud and chaotic. Of course, then I was on a tight deadline and there was a lot of peer pressure and editors on hand to help with the discipline.

I've never heard the term earworms, but its great. Perhaps its the pattern of melody that's the problem. Our brains want to keep track of the chorus - are ever-ready to chime in.

From watching too much baseball on NESN last year -- I had that god-awful Foxwoods jingle stuck in my head. The Wonder of It All -- and I HATED those commercials. When the kids were little we used to listen to Sesame Street tapes in the car and for years - it seemed-- I had PUT DOWN THE DUCKY and the MONSTER MASH worming their way though my ears.

I take two Pilates classes, in one, the music is wonderful, and I never think about it afterward, in the other, its one Euro-pop song after another. You can barely make out the lyrics for all the reverb, but these innane melodies get cemented into my head. Which leads me to another question for debate: does only the annoying music get stuck, or do we simply not mind if a good song continues to play and play and play?

HALLIE:
Earworms, ick. Sounds like earwigs, which I can easily imagine slithering into an ear. I wonder if you could turn them off by eating some really stinky cheese or listening to the Nixon tapes.

I don't get earworms so much as noseworms. Smells that haunt me. Fresh baked bread. Watermelon. Bar-b-que flavor potato chips. It usually haunts me until I'm driven into the kitchen to forage. This is a major disadvantage of working at home.

RO:
You guys are cracking me up. Sorry for having caused this but if you've got to have something stuck in your head, better to have Patsy Cline than the damn Foxwoods jingle. (Was it the playoffs last year? It drove me crazy..oh yeah, pop a cork, like those guys are all drinking champagne...)

I write longhand first, then put on computer. First time, I couldn't possibly listen to music, or anything. (Like my neighbor's children who don't know how lucky they are to still be alive.) Entering on computer, I'll sometimes have a game on in the background.

The good songs get stuck too. The Clash frequently take up residence in my little brain - "darlin' you got to let me know..." but more often it's the excruciating stuff. I had to stop taking my spin class because the instructor kept playing "My Humps" and it was unseemly for a grown woman to be walking around singing about her lovely lady lumps, which I found myself doing on Tuesday afternoons.

HANK:
Someone told me: if you get an earworm, the only cure is to sing Jingle Bell Rock. Okay, I know. It sounds weird. But it does seem to work.Do you have your personal earworms? Tell us—if you dare!