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Singer Carly Rae Jepsen just met you. And this is crazy. But here she is singing at the MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto on Sunday, so call her, maybe?
It seems impossible to hide from Carly Rae Jepsen's “Call Me Maybe.” Someone auto-tuned videos of President Obama so he performs it; The Roots and Jimmy Fallon played it with toy musical instruments; the Harvard baseball team, the Southern Methodist University women’s rowing team, and the Miami Dolphin cheerleaders all danced to the ditty; and the bubble gum pop song has taken over all the airwaves.
And maybe your brainwaves -- does it seem like “Call Me Maybe” is on repeat in your head? You’re not alone; you have an earworm. Earworms, or involuntary imagery of music, burrow their way into the subconscious, making a home in the brain. And "Call Me Maybe" is arguably the earwormiest song in recent memory.
“Earworms is a colloquial name for a phenomena in music psychology—an experience when you get a song or a piece of song such as chorus [stuck in your head] without a willing attempt to experience a musical memory,” says Lassi A. Liikkanen, who published two papers about earworms recently in the journals Psychology of Music and Musicae Scientiae.
People frequently experience earworms after hearing a new songs and recognizing a few snippets of lyrics and melody.
“Involuntary imagery of music is based on our skill to remember music, but for some reason feels out of control. But is perfectly normal,” explains, Liikkanen, a researcher at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT in Finland.
Songs such as “Call Me Maybe” or fun's “We Are Young” seem to pop into our brains against our will. Seeing an album cover or recalling a memory associated with a song can induce an earworm. Liikkanen, who surveyed more than 12,000 Finish Internet users about earworms, found that nearly 90 percent of people experience involuntary imagery of music.
“Some times these involuntary music experiences are tied to a life experience and it is congruent with mood,” he says. “Even if you haven’t heard a song for weeks, months, decades [hearing the song sparks] a key memory.”
He discovered that women catch earworms more than men and younger generations have the bug more frequently than older folks. While there is little evidence about why these differences occur, Liikkanen has a few theories.
Women might be more attuned to their mental lives, possibly connecting songs with meaningful moments more frequently. When it comes to earworms and older people, it seems that older folks listen to music less and might not have as great of memory retention as they once had.
In general, people who play or write music hear earworms more than those simple music listeners.
“A lot of the great composers claim they were hearing the music in their heads … it happens with the not so [great] composers,” Liikkanen says. While the more musical education one has the more involuntary imagery of music occurs at some point it evens out—people with the highest levels of music education reported fewer recurrent earworms.
Those with a form of OCD might hear earworms an excessive amount and people suffering auditory hallucinations sometimes also hear snippets of songs repeatedly. In these cases, Liikkanen says people should consult a psychiatrist for treatment.
“People consider [earworms] entertaining and fun occasions when they emerge,” he says. “Music is wonderfully complicated in human psychology.”
Dying to extract "Call Me Maybe" from your brain? It's not so simple. Liikkanen suggests avoiding all music and cues connected with the song. Cues can be as seemingly insignificant as hearing the title of the song or the artist's name -- so you'll need a moratorium on anything beginning with the words "call me." Good luck with that.
You can enable the Earworm Clinic application on Facebook to learn more about your earworms and provide information for Liikkanen.
Related:
- Can't carry a tune to save your life? You may be amusic
- Shriek, sob, swoon: What causes Bieber fever?
Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.
Leave a Comment:
because it's a stupid 12yo type song. it's like every britney song out there, the more stupid , the more it sticks! it's like 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Say it and it sticks. Worse than gum on a sidewalk in the winter.
Are you angry about something Lawrence? Geepers!
My current earworm is the song "Somebody That I Used to Know."
"Worse than gum on a sidewalk in the winter."
Hard and not sticky?
Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is a notable earworm too. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned.
Alex, I think they were riding the trend of newer music with Call Me Maybe and the fun. song. There are a couple of chord progressions that also spark these things, the most notable being I - V - vi - IV, used in Canon in D by Pachelbel and famously lampooned by Rob Paravonian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
These things breed familiarity, and in turn breed the earworm phenomenon. This is also the reason that Rebecca Black's Friday video ended up getting stuck in more people's heads than admitted it, though it used the other progression most common in pop: I - vi - IV - V
The most persistent earworms I get happen when I only hear the beginning of a song. I spend the rest of the day finishing it in my head.
I hate it when I go to bed with a song stuck in my head and wake up with it the next morning!!! Usually, listening to classical or other genre of music for awhile helps me get rid of it At least for a little while until I hear the song again! Aarrgghh!!!!
She owes everything to Harvard's baseball team, IMO. When that video went viral, everybody starting doing their own rendition and it exploded. I've seen mean looking tough guys at the gym spontaneously do the Harvard baseball team's hand movements during the song's chorus when it plays over radio.
Dammit.... I just got this out of my head. Thanks, MSNBC....
Never heard the subject song but the most persistent earworm (that's a new term to me) of all time - "It's a Small World"
We are the World, the Umpa Loompa song, anything by MJ with Paul McCartney and recently, random songs from Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Stuck in my head for DAYS.
Thanks alot Ben. Now I will be listening to that song for the rest of the day. I agree that " Its a Small World" is one of the most wicked around.
Never heard the song either, but I frequently spontaneously sing: "Imagine me and you, I do. I think about you day and night, it's only right.....So happy together! It's all my sister's fault, she had it as a ring tone on her phone. Followed closely by Hey Jude and Yesterday by the Beatles. Guess I only have "oldies" ear worm songs.
STOP IT!!!!! I haven't thought about that song in a long time...until NOW!!! Thankyouverymuch.
This happens to me a lot. It's always a small fragment and repeats over and over and over again in my head. It reminds me of how Leonardo diCaprio repeated words when he played Howard Hughes. I have found something that often works to dislodge whatever fragment is there though. I just need to sing to myself a few rounds of "row, row, row your boat, ..." all the way through. I think because I sing the whole song, it doesn't get stuck as an earworm fragment itself. And, it's catchy enough to compete. Besides, it cheers me up and isn't it a great life lesson?
If I have a song stuck in my head (usually only a portion of the song) I have found that if I listen to the entire song it usually makes it go away. Works for me :)
Listening to 'em doesn't make 'em go away for me - i have to sing em out loud to kill the worm. Unfortunately, i then give the stupid worm to whoever happens to be within earshot! And, also unfortunately, i don't sing so good, so they're in double jeopardy!!!
Its the frequencies of the songs that "strike" a chord.
As a musician and songwriter, though I've always thought that re's a reason popular songs become popular I've never grasped just what it is to the extent that I've beeen able to produce one. My daughter sent me a link to the video of Call Me Maybe and I had to agreee it was a pop song. By the way - a g recommendation for A & R guys - hire a few retarded kids to listen to your prospects. I've spent many years working with them and they always recognize a hit.
We just learned the song for our party band. 1st time, packed the floor with very little effort! To my dismay, we're going to be playing this tripe for a good year I bet. At least I have fun with it making up new words. Here's the latest:
"I know ya said no, but that don't PHASE me, so here's my number, and call me baby!
And..all the other boys, try to TASE me, I'm gonna stalk you, I'm batsh*t crazy!"
"Centerfold" will get any other earworm out of your head immediately. :)
Funny. I always called these tunes "musical crack". Now they have an official term...likely a better term in the end anyway. Never heard the song mentioned and I guess I will avoid it.
I most typically get earworms for songs that are playing on the radio when my alarm clock goes off. I then changed it to a light beeping noise and that helped a lot.
Who the hell is she? Never heard of her. Never heard of her song.
LOL, how did you escape it?
Same way I have, I guess - I've never heard of her or her songs.
Of course, I don't sit and watch every video on the internet, hate US pop radio, and all forms of advertisement.
OMG you suck MSNBC!!! The headline was enough to stick it to me and the rest of the day is ruined <as I repeatedly bang my head against the desk>
Nah...that song is not an earworm...if anything, its unmemorable...just like the artist.
WORST EARWORM SONGS/Lyrics:
...oh what a night. Late december back in....
...I was the black sheep of the family...(puke)
...I'm sailing away...set an open course....
...I get knocked down..but i get up again...
I have "Holiday Road" stuck in my head... has been there for days.
Holiday RoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOad. Holiday RoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOad
...oh and, Come on Eileen....
Hahahaaa hahahaaaa
Fortunately, I have never heard it to begin with... so it isn't stuck, and I don't plan on changing that either.
If I get some odd song in my head, I usually ask, "What triggered it?" Usually there is some reason, and when the reason is discovered, the song goes away.
Other than that, I have "Beans in my Ears."
Rumor has it that an earworm can be really annoying.
Sing "Happy Birthday." Sing it all the way through. If it doesn't work the first time, do it again. Everytime your earworm acts up, it's your birthday. "Happy Birthday" will not earworm for some reason, perhaps because it is so ingrained into us already. I'm sure "Mary had a little lamb" would work for the same reason, but I stick with "Happy Birthday."
No mention of LMFAO's Sexy and I Know It? That song can stay stuck in my head for days! At least it's a fun song. XD
Well, at least now my kids aren't singing "Circus Afro" anymore.
Some of my earworms:
Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
The Outhere Brothers - I Want to F--k You in the @ss
Jimmy Durante - Mac the Knife and Frosty the Snowman
Frank Sinatra - New York, New York
At least I feel safe - the first two will never be used in commercials in the US.
The last song I caught an earworm from was Super Bass. The whole sound track to Phantom of the Opera causes me to go insane.