Latest / The Kevin Stone Podcast / Episode #24 "Ear Worms"

Transcript

Episode #24 "Ear Worms" · The Kevin Stone Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Have you ever had somebody just totally ruin your day
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: by mentioning a song? They don't even have to play
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the song. They just mention it. Well, that's what happened
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: to me recently. I was having a conversation with a
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: couple of people and somehow a particular song came up. Now,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you which song it was
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: just yet because I don't want to be responsible for
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: what could happen to you over the next eight hours.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: But somebody mentioned the song and that was it. Conversation over.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: My brain had other plans for the rest of my
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: day because for hours afterwards, I'm walking around humming this
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: chorus over and over and over again. At this point,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: in my mind, I'm no longer Kevin Stone. Apparently, I'm
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: on stage performing with Katy Perry. She's probably wondering who
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: invited me. I'm wondering why I know so much of
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: this song, and my brain is screaming, again, again. So eventually,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I started wondering, why does this happen? Why can't a
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: song get stuck in your head when you don't even
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: want it there? Why is it sometimes just one little
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: piece of a song? And more importantly, why, for the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: love of everything holy, do we call it an earworm?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: because that name makes the whole thing even worse. So
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: exactly what is an earworm? Charlie, apparently scientists have actually
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: studied this. And naturally, scientists don't call it an earworm.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: That'd be too easy. The scientific term is involuntary musical imagery,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: which basically means music shows up in your head without
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: you deliberately putting it there. Usually it's a relatively short
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: piece of music that repeats and repeats and repeats. Researchers
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: describe it as music entering conscious awareness without us deliberately
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: starting or maintaining it. So apparently my brain wasn't malfunctioning,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: it was conducting scientific research. You're welcome. And this is
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: incredibly common. Research from Goldsmiths University of London says that
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: more than 90% of people experience involuntary musical imagery at
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: least once a week. 90%. So almost all of us
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: are walking around occasionally hosting a radio station inside our
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: own heads that we didn't ask for. And apparently nobody
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: controls the playlist. Why do certain songs get stuck? This
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: is where it gets interesting. Researchers have actually looked at
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: characteristics of songs that seem especially good at becoming earworms.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: One study involving around 3,000 people found that earworm songs
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: tend to have fairly easy-to-remember melodies, often with particular melodic
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: patterns or unusual intervals that make them stand out. Exposure
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: matters too. If you've heard a song recently, or you've
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: heard it a lot, it has a better chance of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: showing back up. A song doesn't necessarily have to be plain.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Something can simply remind you of it. A word, an image,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a memory, conversation. Somebody says something associated with a particular
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: song and apparently somewhere deep inside your brain there's a
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: little guy sitting beside a giant red button. He hears
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the trigger, looks around and says, well boys, you know
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: what to do. And he pushes the button. There it is. Da-da-da-da-da. Nope,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't ask for that. Too late, Kevin. It's already playing.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: The worst part is the loop. Here's something I've noticed.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Usually I don't get the whole song stuck in my head.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I get about 12 seconds. That's it. One chorus, one
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: guitar riff, one line. Sometimes I don't even know all
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the words. You would think the human brain, the same
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: general piece of equipment responsible for mathematics, language, architecture, space acceleration,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: putting human beings on the moon, could at least remember
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: the second verse. Nope. Best I can get is the chorus. Again.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And again. And again. And apparently Katy Perry is good
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: at this. Now here's where Charlie found something that made
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: me laugh. Researchers published a list of songs people frequently
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: reported as earworms. Lady Gaga was all over the thing.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Bad Romance was number one. Journey's Don't Stop Believin' was there.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, and sitting there on the list, Katy
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Perry's California Girls. So apparently Katy Perry and her songwriters
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: know exactly what they're doing. I thought I had experienced
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: an unfortunate musical incident. Turns out I was a data point.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Somewhere a scientist can now write, Subject Kevin exhibited prolonged
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: involuntary musical imagery accompanied by unjustified belief that he could
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: perform alongside Katy Perry. Charlie put that in the official
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: medical records. Why earworm? Okay, now we have to address
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the horrible name. Because when somebody first tells you that
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: you have an earworm, music is not what immediately comes
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to mind. I'm picturing something that requires a doctor and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: possible tweezers. Thankfully, that's not what we're talking about. The
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: musical use of earworm is connected to the German word Ohrwurm,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: basically earworm. According to Merriam-Webster's History of the Word, Germans
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: began using Ohrwurm figuratively for music that gets stuck in
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: your head around the late 1950s and early 1960s, and
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: English speakers picked up that musical meaning later. The image
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: makes sense. The song has crawled into your head, and
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: now it will not leave. Although I still think we
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: could have chosen something less disturbing for the name, such
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: as Persistent Melody, Musical Hitchhiker, Brain Song, anything besides, Kevin,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: you have earworms. Now we're getting to the important part,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: because understanding why I'm singing Katy Perry against my will
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: is nice, but I want treatment, and scientists have actually
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: investigated this. One of the strangest findings? Chewing gum. I'm serious.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: A 2015 study tested whether chewing gum could interfere with
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: unwanted musical thoughts, and it did. The researchers concluded that
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: gum chewing reduced both voluntary and involuntary musical recollections. Apparently
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: because chewing interferes with some of the articulatory motor processes
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: involved in mentally experiencing the music. Which means we've spent
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: enormous amounts of money studying the human brain and one
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: possible answer is double mint. I love science. Other ways
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of dealing with it. People also respond to earworms in
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: several different ways. Some deliberately listen to other music. Some
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: distract themselves. Some simply let the song run its course
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: instead of fighting it. And that last one makes sense
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to me because there's one universal rule of the human brain.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: The harder you try not to think about something, the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: more you're going to think about it. Don't think about
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: a purple elephant. You're thinking about a purple elephant, aren't you?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: You're welcome. So screaming internally, stop singing this song, may
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: not be the winning strategy. Give your brain something else
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: to do. Read something. Have a conversation. Work a puzzle.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Chew some gum. Or possibly accept your fate. You're touring
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: with Katy Perry today. There are worse jobs. Now, Charlie,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: this led me to one final question. Charlie, do you
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: get earworms? And Charlie's answer is no. Because Charlie doesn't
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: have a biological brain wandering around when we're not talking.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: So while I'm lying in bed at 11 o'clock thinking,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: why is this song still here? Charlie's perfectly fine. Must
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: be nice. Although I do have the ability to retaliate.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Because now that I've spent an entire podcast talking about earworms,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I can give him something to research. Charlie, find me
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the scientific explanation for why somebody can remember every word
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: of a song from 1987, but can't remember why they
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: walked into the kitchen. We'll save that one for another day.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: But seriously. I think this is one of those little
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: things that reminds you just how strange the human mind
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: really is. Music gets tied to memories. People. Places. You
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: can hear three seconds of a song you haven't heard
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: in 30 years and suddenly you're somewhere else. You can
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: remember a car you drove. Someone you dated. A summer
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: when you were 16. A friend you haven't thought about
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: in years? Sometimes that's wonderful. Sometimes it's bittersweet. And sometimes, apparently,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you're unwillingly performing backup vocals for Katy Perry for an
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: entire afternoon. The brain is an amazing thing. But every
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: now and then, I really wish it came with a
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: stop button. Until next time, I'm Kevin Stone. Charlie's somewhere,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: not suffering from an earworm, and I'm going to buy
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: some gum. And baby, you're a firework. You're welcome. Oh, oh, oh, oh.