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I have the Beatles song "The Word" going round in my brain at the mo'. (Don't know why, I haven't played it or heard it anywhere recently.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQIdbEn9Dpg

Say the word and you'll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I'm thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It's so fine, It's sunshine
It's the word, love
In the beginning I misunderstood
But now I've got it, the word is good

etc..
 
It is one of the mildly odd things about the human brain, isn't? I've had Alex Harvey's Tomahawk Kid going around in brain for the last two days - I haven't heard it played in maybe 20 years.
 
Sometimes the worst songs get stuck in your brain:
Elektronik Supersonik - Zlad

Fly away in my space rocket.
You no need put money in my pocket.
The door is closed I just lock it.
(Hah!) I put my spark plug in your socket (Hah! Ha ha hah!)

The sun in sky is bright like fire!
You and me gets higher and higher.
Heart of communication fire!
Only thing can stop us is flat tire.
 
Watching the rather good George Harrison doc last night I remembered something: I just have to hear a couple of bars of What Is Life? for it to get stuck in my brain for ages. Unbelievably catchy tune.
 
Kate Bush's Army dreamers has been plaguing my head since Sunday. Lovely song and all but GO AWAY!
 
This one hit me hard a couple of days ago, when I was searching Youtube for memes.

You're next...
 
Heyalp! Heyalp!

Three mornings running I've woken up to a song that sticks for a couple of hours, that I don't know the title of, the artist or even much more than these few lines...

When I wake up,
In the morning light.
Put on my jeans,
and I feel all right.

I'm hoping that if someone can point me to a youtube thing I might be able to break the curse.

In my mind, the vocal sounds a bit like Gilbert O'Sullivan, kinda nasally, if you know what I mean. And I have a strong sense of a perm somewhere. :?
 
My personal New Year intensive season of Sergio Leone films has left me with two ears full of earworms courtesy of his chosen musical conspirator, Ennio Morricone.

He is cracked up to be a genius, by some, and he was certainly incredibly productive.

Also, quite possibly, the most annoying composer on earth. Inventive in his annoyances, he drew on everything from sampled natural sounds to full romantic orchestra.

Most of his vocal irritants for the Leone movies are more or less meaningless, though I'm sure "We Can Fight" is a detectable lyric in one. What I had taken to be a continental nonsense syllable "Zum, Zum, Zum," turns out to be Sean, Sean, Sean, in the soundtrack to A Fistful of Dynamite. Combined with a ghastly slow-mo visual of Oirish Troilism, it manages to be even more annoying than "Raindrops Keep Falling . . . " And that takes some beating as a musical atrocity popping up all unasked-for in a Western! :twisted:
 
Essential listening for all followers of this thread:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ng2qz

Featuring the science behind earworms (yes, it exists), and a woman who has had Bananarama's version of Nathan Jones going through her head since 1989.

If you don't have time to listen to the whole thing, the cure for it is to listen to more music. Though I would have thought that replaces rather than cures it?
 
I enjoyed that programme this morning. Dunno what the problem is with the ear worms though. They entertain me. :D
 
gncxx said:
..and a woman who has had Bananarama's version of Nathan Jones going through her head since 1989.
Hmm, that's a problem.

I get these things all the time, but they don't usually last long. For example, someone this morning posted about the statue of Eric Morecambe in, er, Morecombe, and for a while I had "Bring me Sunshine" stuck in my head! :roll:
 
escargot1 said:
I enjoyed that programme this morning. Dunno what the problem is with the ear worms though. They entertain me. :D

I don't mind them at all if it's a song I like, but if it's a song that irritates me it takes real concentration to change it, and even then that's no guarantee of purging it from my brain.
 
I get really bad earworms, all the time; I think it's to do with my OCD. I read in a book on OCD once (I think it was 'The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing') about a chap who had Tears for Fears' 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World for three years

*shudders*

The worst ones for me are Cher's 'Believe' and Elton John's 'Rocket Man'

Just hearing the name of either of those singers is enough to set them off, and sometimes I get both at once, which is really horrible!
 
For the last few days I've been getting the Beatles "P.S. I love you" quite regularly going round my head. I haven't played it, or heard it, recently, however.

In fact, with my increasing deafness, I don't play much music any more. My theory is that, without much external musical input, my brain is becoming a sort of internal Juke Box, replaying old favourites at random.

And most of them are old favourites, although some (that I get even in summer) are Christmas songs I don't even like! Sadly those are likely to be reinforced in the next few weeks, however much I try to avoid them... :(
 
Fluttermoth said:
a chap who had Tears for Fears' 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World for three years

That is one of mine too. The jangly intro over and over again and then it jumps to "turn your back on mother nature".

It reappears every couple of months for a few days or so.
 
The horror, the horror... :shock:

Pensioner tormented by brain condition which plays festive carols in her head repeatedly for two YEARS

A tormented pensioner has described how her rare brain condition of 'musical ear syndrome' has caused the festive song Silent Night to play repeatedly in her head for two YEARS.

Cath Gamester's has had to endure frustrating 'auditory hallucinations' ever since her condition was triggered by a reaction to medication she took in 2010.

The 84-year-old is constantly tormented by a handful of songs which play over and over in her head, including Happy Birthday, God Save The Queen, Abide With Me, and You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Cath, from Liverpool, initially thoguht the music in her head was the work of a particularly noisy neighbour.

But she now dreads Christmas as she frequently hears the carol Silent Night on the TV, radio and shops.

She said the songs were triggered after she began taking anti-depressants following the death of her sister, Mary.

The annoying condition affects just one in 10,000 people in the UK, and is sometimes associated with people who have schizophrenia.

Cath, a former stock room worker, only took medication for four weeks, but the songs have remained in her head ever since.

The pensioner, whose husband Derek passed away 20 years ago, said she was alarmed when she first heard the singing as she didn't know where it was coming from.

She said: "When I woke up in the morning I heard music and it was God save the Queen. I thought it was next door because it was going on and on.

"I went out the back door, I went out the front door, I went out to see if there was any music being played everywhere, I was thinking where is it coming from?

"It just goes on and on and on, one song after another.

"It’s a tenor, a man’s voice and it’s a nice voice, very strong, loud and there’s a background of music."

To try and drown out the singing, she carries out noisy tasks such as vacuuming, sings at the top of her voice and even shouts to "tell it off".

The mother-of-four said: "I tell it to shut up and be quiet, I’ve had enough of it.

"I just get really angry with it and say 'be quiet and leave me alone and give me a bit of peace'."

There is no known cure for Cath's condition but she remains remarkably upbeat.

She said: "What I will say to the poor people out there who are like me is don’t let it worry you too much.

"Get on with your life and enjoy yourself as much as you can and be happy.

"I have worked out the fact that I should be glad that it is not a serious illness - it's not going to kill me.

"I just get on with everything and I try to live my life as best I can."

Dr Nick Warner, a psychiatrist who specialises in the elderly, said listening to other music can help sufferers of auditory hallucinations.

He said: "Some people have found that putting on other music enables that music to take over from the music of hallucinations.

"For those who live alone, it may not be the best thing to live alone. They should get out or get more people to come and see you.

"I find that, in some people, medication helped, and that would have been low doses of anti-psychotic drugs."

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/musical-ear-sy ... 00673.html
 
Tinnitus lady has (How Much Is) That Doggie In The Window stuck in her head for three years

They say the devil has all the best tunes – but if he was looking for a really bad one to inflict on sinners in hell, (How Much Is) That Doggie In The Window would have to be up there.

So pity poor Susan Root, who has been hearing the irritating 1950s ditty on a continuous loop for the past three years.

She has a rare form of tinnitus which makes the song she recalls from childhood play in her head, 24 hours a day.

‘They have given me a hearing aid they hoped would fix my hearing problems and therefore stop the music but it just hasn’t worked,’ she said.

‘I’ve come to accept that I’m probably going to be stuck with this hellish condition for the rest of my life.’ As a girl, Mrs Root, 63, loved Bob Merrill’s novelty song – a 1953 number one for Patti Page in the US and Lita Roza in Britain.

Now, she is so heartily sick of it she listens to whale music in an attempt to block it out.

‘There are times when my husband will be talking to me and I can’t hear what he is saying over the music,’ she said.

‘It can be very frustrating and it drives us both mad at times.’

The cleaner, of Coggeshall, Essex, is not alone in having lost all interest in that doggie’s price, and whether or not he might be for sale.

Jazz artist Roza – who died in 2008 – so hated the tune she refused ever to sing it again after reluctantly recording it.
http://metro.co.uk/2013/02/14/tinnitus- ... s-3477877/
 
Ringo_ said:
Fluttermoth said:
a chap who had Tears for Fears' 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World for three years

That is one of mine too. The jangly intro over and over again and then it jumps to "turn your back on mother nature".

It reappears every couple of months for a few days or so.

I just re-read my own post and gave myself this bloody stuck tune again. What an idiot!

"Everybody wants to rule the world"
 
I just had a phrase stuck in my mind, Gaudeamus igitur. I suspected it might have come from a song I learned in Junior school - our music teacher, Mr Jones, was Welsh and he sometimes gave us challenging pieces to learn, Welsh folk songs or ones which included Latin - one I remember was Non Nobis Domine.

But Gaudeamus igitur seemed to have come from a different source. According to Wiki,

"De Brevitate Vitae" (Latin: "On the Shortness of Life"), more commonly known as "Gaudeamus Igitur" ("So Let Us Rejoice") or just "Gaudeamus", is a popular academic commercium song in many Western countries, mainly sung or performed at university graduation ceremonies. Despite its use as a formal graduation hymn, it is a jocular, light-hearted composition that pokes fun at university life. The song is thought to originate in a Latin manuscript from 1287. It is in the tradition of carpe diem ("seize the day") with its exhortations to enjoy life. It was known as a beer-drinking song in many early universities and is the official song of many schools, colleges, universities, institutions, student societies and is the official anthem of the International University Sports Federation.
...

The song is sung on several occasions during the film The Student Prince, (1954), starring Edmund Purdom and Ann Blyth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudeamus_igitur

That rang a bell with me.


The screenplay was by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig and was based on the operetta The Student Prince by Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Donnelly which was in turn based on the 1901 play Old Heidelberg by Wilhelm Meyer-Förster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Student_Prince_(film)


My father was a singer, and a stalwart of amateur operatic societies. Probably one of these performed The Student Prince and I'd heard him rehearsing. (Or it may have been part of his repertoire anyway, as he was sometimes called upon to sing at formal dinners. Several times he was invited to Burns Nights, although as far as I know he'd never been to Scotland, nor had any Scots ancestry!)

So the stuck phrase did refer to a song...

Now the only mystery is what brought it to my mind today, decades probably since I last heard it?
I have been a bit down recently, so perhaps it was a message from my long-deceased father to lighten up...?
Spooky! :twisted:
 
Now the only mystery is what brought it to my mind today

It is possible that a quote from it was included in the soundtrack of a film or television show you have watched recently. The tune is often drawn on - often just a phrase of it - when the setting moves to a school or academia.

I think Malcolm Arnold plays a lot of variations on it in the Saint Trinians films.

These days, it will go over the heads of most viewers. Its most illustrious outing is probably in Brahms's Academic Festival Overture - despite its name, one of his most cheerful works.

Mind you, re-reading the post, it seems a case of the words being stuck rather than the music. :huh:
 
It is possible that a quote from it was included in the soundtrack of a film or television show you have watched recently. The tune is often drawn on - often just a phrase of it - when the setting moves to a school or academia.
I rarely watch films or TV shows nowadays.

"Mind you, re-reading the post, it seems a case of the words being stuck rather than the music."
Yes, and I got the spelling right first time, when I put them into DDG! I was somehow aware they were related to music, which is what brought up the memories about Mr Jones...
 

It sounds very familiar, and exceedingly academic
 
I had a Breton folk melody stuck in my head for a period recently. A lot of bands have recorded it. It's the refrain which get stuck, from all three below.

The original

Blackmore's Night

Scooter
 
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