Have you ever had a song replaying in your head for days on end and no matter what you do can’t switch it off? Or worse yet, have you had that song stuck in your head and feel that you are about to break free of its grip when you hear your partner, who has also been struggling with the same obsession, quietly humming the tune in the next room – starting the replay all over again?
My guess is your answer would be yes. In fact, according to a 2016 study posted on the National Institute of Health web site, approximately 98% of the Western population has experienced SSS (“stuck song syndrome”) or what is commonly referred to as “earworms.”
I love how authors of that study explain why earworms become so irretrievably stuck in our heads:
“earworms are a cognitive itch to which the brain automatically itches back, resulting in a vicious loop.”
Evidently, the more we try to suppress these pesky songs the more they become an obsession. Experts in the field refer to this mental process as IPT or ironic process theory. I figured that a theory with its own acronym must be pretty serious, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. I’ll spare your the details (mainly because I don’t fully understand the details), but I’m pretty sure it raises the status of earworms from a trivial annoyance to something worth writing home about.
It seems that almost any tune can get stuck in our heads. Recently, Ann’s brain appears to have been held hostage by a song which couldn’t have a more ironic title – Do You Hear the People Sing? (from Les Misérables). I even catch myself involuntarily singing snippets now and then, especially the refrain:
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes
But my major affliction, which has been replaying in my head ad nauseam for weeks (if not months) is Kris Kristofferson’s Casey’s Last Ride. In case you are not familiar with the song, released in 1970, the first stanza goes like this:
Casey joins the hollow sound of silent people walking down
The stairway to the subway in the shadows down below
Following their footsteps through the neon-darkened corridors
Of silent desperation, never speakin’ to a soul
Strangely, even though this clearly is a sad song, for some reason I actually feel somewhat uplifted each time I hear it, whether in my head or on Spotify. This got me to wondering why such a sad song could make me feel good – even after umpteen replays – and whether this means that I have a perverted sense of taste in music.
I was relieved to learn that I’m not the only one who enjoys sad songs. A recent BBC post entitled “Is pop music really getting sadder and angrier? concludes that songs with unhappy or sad themes actually have been on the rise since the 1980s. That means that there are lots of folks out there who must enjoy that kind of music. But that doesn’t answer my question about why people find such unhappy stuff enjoyable.
Perhaps the answer is in an article I came across in UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Magazine appropriately entitled “Why Sad Songs Make You Feel Good.” The author, Simon McCarthy-Jones, an associate professor in clinical psychology and neuropsychology at Trinity College in Dublin, argues that although sadness is generally a feeling we try to avoid, sad music “pulls us in and lifts us up.”
Part of the reason we feel uplifted is biological. Similar to how our bodies react in real life to loss or pain, certain hormones come to our rescue to help us cope. “They do so by making us feel calmed, consoled, and supported,” he says.” It’s sort of like having “our own metaphorical morphine drip.”
Beyond the “metaphorical morphine drip,” McCarthy/Jones writes that we may enjoy sad songs because psychologically they can profoundly ‘move‘ us. Being profoundly moved, he claims, can lead to “chills, goosebumps, a flood of emotions (including romantic ones), a warmth in our chest, and elation.”
I should say that if I experienced these biological and psychological effects each time “Casey’s Last Ride” replayed in my head I’d be a physical and mental wreck by the end of the day. Although the song doesn’t give me goosebumps or make me elated, it does “move’ me in some way that is not unpleasant. Maybe some day researchers will dignify my particular form of SSS (Stuck Song Syndrome) with a cool new acronym – SSSS (Stuck Sad Song Syndrome). But even if my condition is diagnosed and science comes up with a cure, I think I’ll pass. I’m enjoying my sad songs too much.
The “hook” in a song is what gets you and keeps you coming back to the tune. I remember earworms when I was a grade school kid and was really worried that I’d never be able to rid myself of the tune so I could move on to other things. I didn’t know any of the terms or psychology, but SSS and IPT describe it well. I also remember someone telling me not to worry, that the memory would heal over like a scraped elbow or a nasty insect bite. That was right, though some of those old tunes and ballads drift back into mind everysoonceinawhihle.
Thanks for the comment and sharing your childhood worries, I like the “scraped elbow” and “nasty insect bite” analogies regarding getting over SSS.
At least YOUR earwig is enjoyable/soothing. I tend to get stuck on things like the Beverly Hillbillies theme song. WHY does my brain retain every word of THAT??
At least it’s not a sad song, even if it may be a sad result. I’ll have to check out the Beverly Hillbillies theme song… on second thought I think I’ll skip it.