My family knows that I have often been plagued in the past by the horrible, repetitious theme to “The Brady Bunch.” I never really did watch the show, as my taste goes more towards science fiction and sports, but the song is a menace. Songs that “stick in your head” are often referred to as “earworms.” James Kellaris of the University of Cincinnati asked his students to list their worst offenders, and came up with a top 10:
- Other. Everyone has his or her own worst earworm.
- Chili’s “Baby Back Ribs” jingle.
- “Who Let the Dogs Out”
- “We Will Rock You”
- Kit-Kat candy-bar jingle (“Gimme a Break …”)
- “Mission Impossible” theme
- “YMCA”
- “Whoomp, There It Is”
- “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”
- “It’s a Small World After All”
Dr. Kellaris plans to do some online surveys here, but in the meantime, I’d like to see if my readers have their own additions to the list. In addition to the Brady Bunch, I find anything written by Mel Brooks to be diabolically persistent, especially songs from The Producers (Springtime for Hitler, Haben Sie Gehoert Das Deutsches Band, and Prisoners of Love are particularly insidious).
Dr. Kellaris and Friend
My guess is that Dr. Kellaris’ analysis will pick up some commonalities among these songs. Just as people all over the world respond with similar emotions to key changes like the introduction to the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” some musical responses seem to be prewired in the brain. Just as a first guess, none of the earworms are somber, dark pieces. They’re all kind of bubblegummy (if that’s a word).
Sorry in advance if you’re humming the rest of the morning thanks to me.
9 Comments
bbautist · February 7, 2009 at 6:48 pm
I saw an article similar to this blog on yahoo and I was really interested in this study. Here are a few tunes I think are also “ear worms”:
-Will Smith’s “Gettin Jiggy Wit it”
-Beyonce’s “Single-Ladies”
-Geico’s new theme song “Somebody’s watching me”
-“Jingle Bells”
krusch · February 8, 2009 at 4:29 pm
-when I was younger I would always have the Lamb Chop song in my head (this is the song that never ends)
-another one that has sometimes stuck with me is the free credit report commercial that is: F-R-E-E that spells free credit report.com baby.
The people who come up with these tunes that get stuck in our heads are very good at marketing and are probably getting paid a lot of money for their work.
MMORENPSYCH340 · February 9, 2009 at 11:32 am
As a child my friends and I had problems with “It’s a Small World after all”. I had the opportunity to talk with some advertising designers at a sports game my dad took me to. They told me that a lot of companies explicitly ask for annoying ads because people tended to remember those for the longest.
raquelart22 · February 13, 2009 at 11:50 am
When I first saw the title “earworms” I thought the article was going to be about actual earworms. Songs that I would add to the list would be RnB songs from the early 1990s-Kc & JoJo, SWV, R. Kelly, ect. I LOVE my PS3 and I play Guitar Hero way too much, so another song I would say is “One Way or Another”, and “Sweet Home Alabama”, every Janet Jackson, and “Let it Rock”. Those songs always bring a smile to my face and give me energy when I’m out.
KellyThornton · February 13, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Earworms are so interesting to me. I want to know what triggers the ongoing replay in your head with some songs, but not others. I find it weird that only the annoying songs get stuck in my head. Why can’t my favorite song get stuck in my head instead of an annoying commercial? The song I have the most problem with is “Walking on Broken Glass”. Even when I haven’t heard that song in a while, it still seems to wiggle into my head. Other songs that are common earworms for me are songs from the 90’s like “walking on the sun” by The Bare Naked Ladies.
I heard that if you have a song stuck in your head, you can get rid of it by listening to that song. I haven’t tried it yet, but I wonder if that would really work.
msirna · February 17, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I don’t think that I have any specific songs that get stuck in my head time and time again. I usually just get the last song that I was listening to stuck in my head until I get a different song stuck. Sometimes its only for a couple hours, but other times it lasts a day or so, on and off.
kpeters · February 21, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Earworms are definitely a great advertising strategy! It is so interesting how those little songs can becomes extremely catchy and stuck in your head. I’ve heard plenty of quiz type things where people will name some company, and the audience will have to reply with the appropriate advertising song. It’s fascinating how much seemingly useless information people have crammed in their brains.
Christinawright · February 23, 2009 at 5:59 pm
One that comes to mind for me is that car commercial (I think it’s maybe for Chevy. See that’s sad when you remember the song and not what exactly it was for) that sings “like a rock… As strong as you can be… like a rock, etc…” Do you know which one I’m talking about? And of course, any good 80’s lover knows the “547-5309” song (did I get those numbers right?) I always wonder how many calls those poor people who just happened to have that number got when that song came out!!
jforsberg · March 10, 2009 at 11:50 am
Earworms are like hiccups, they only cross your mind when they’re driving you crazy! The songs that get stuck in my head seem to be the fresh prince of belair theme song and anything by the temptations! As said earlier, it’s a great advantage for music artists and advertising agencies to create a melody and lyrics that get stuck in the consumers mind. How powerful!!
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