Why Do Songs Get Stuck in Your Head? Earworms, Memory and Mark Twain
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Why does a tune keep returning after the music stops? Explore earworms, also called involuntary musical imagery, through an original musical demonstration, research on exposure and melodic features, and Mark Twain's 1876 fiction.
A complete audio edition with the original musical examples. Research can identify tendencies; it does not provide a guaranteed hit recipe. AI-narrated.
SOURCES (consulted 21 October 2026) Jakubowski, Finkel, Stewart & Müllensiefen (2017), Dissecting an Earworm…
The skinny
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