We all know that feeling when you just can't get a song out of your head because your brain picks a tune up while driving to work or doing your shopping. There's even a site, Unhearit.com, dedicated to allowing people to "unhear" songs by listening to equally catchy songs so you forget your old song by replacing it with a new catchy tune... Interesting reversed psychology going on there!
Speaking of psychology, how does a song get stuck in your head in the first place? How Stuff Works tells us the culprits are ear-worms, parasitic only in the sense that they get lodged in your head and cause a sort of "brain itch" - a need for the brain to fill in the gaps in a song's rhythm. Other theories on this subject say stuck songs are like thoughts we're trying to suppress (although we highly doubt that Bye Bye Bye by 'Nsync is a suppressed thought...?) The harder we try not to think about them, the more we can't help it.
Nearly 98% of people have had songs stuck in their head according to a study in which 559 students reported their top 10 stuck-in-the-head tunes as being:
- Other
- Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" jingle
- Who Let The Dogs Out
- We Will Rock You
- Kit-Kat candy-bar jingle
- Mission Impossible theme
- YMCA
- Whoomp, There It Is
- The Lion Sleeps Tonight
- It's a Small World After All
Catchy songs are all around us, so tell us about what song is stuck in your head RIGHT NOW & try to trace where you think your brain picked it up! Talk to us by following @Imagesound and using the hash tag #StuckInMyHead
Leave a comment