Why do songs get stuck in our head?
In: Biology
Our brains *really* like patterns. Some patterns are really itchy, and our brain wants to scratch em. A lot of people are paid a lot of money to figure out what kind of patterns in music are the itchiest.
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Related: why do you wake up in the morning with a song stuck in your head you haven’t heard in years?
It can be considered as OCD if it is bad. I’m not an expert. I just recall it being part of the PDR
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4723199/#:~:text=Obsessive%2Dcompulsive%20disorder,-Patients%20with%20OCD&text=Earworms%20are%20considered%20intrusions%3A%20unwelcome,%2C%20dirt%2C%20and%20contamination).
Especially when it’s a newer-to-you song, when familiarity starts to begin, your brain is literally *begging* for it… parts of the song it knows is coming up has already built some memory and neurons are already making those connections… but at the same time it’s still kinda new, so you get the best of both worlds… a combination of dopamine and serotonin from equal parts of anticipation of the unknown and nostalgia of what you already know
It is bliss! Enjoy!!
Unless it’s like waking up with “Feliz navidad” in your head like super randomly… then I have no answer for you lol
These songs are called earworms, or involuntary musical imagery. One of the reasons you’re even hearing the song is because it’s a popular tune, it’s created with a certain catchy rhythm or relatable lyrics that make them easy to remember and more importantly, hard to forget.
Perhaps you remember it because you’ve heard it so many times, or maybe its lyrics connect you with a strong previous memory of something else so it’s an easy mental pathway to follow. Sometimes your brain is tired so it just latches onto something easy to repeat and plays it over and over as sort of self-stimulation (aka stimming). Your brain is trying to relax you but may sometimes be driving you nuts instead. The more you try not to think about it, the worse it gets.
I have this happen to me all the time, every day. If I’m in a place where familiar background music is playing and I leave to a place where there’s no music, the last song I hear will repeat a chorus or phrase over and over again, and the only way I get rid of it is by listening to something else. I used to combat this by changing the lyrics in my head as I hear it… one of my favorite exercises is to pretend it’s being sung by cats and try to slip “meow” into the lyrics (Guns and Roses may sing “Where do we go? Where do we go, meow?”)
If you’ve never experienced this before with any intensity, allow me to introduce you to a song that’s become such an earworm to me that I try to not listen to it anymore. Enjoy!
[https://youtu.be/pK7MPFxw8w4?si=3UMI_accxaolasLw](https://youtu.be/pK7MPFxw8w4?si=3UMI_accxaolasLw)
Guitar Hero III – Tom Morello Battle Music. Even though I played the game so many years ago it still gets stuck in my head randomly
My personal view is it’s an evolutionary feature to help get thru the day when the day is boring. We are here bc ancestors figured out a lot of helpful traits that help manage other traits. We have a trait to find new and interesting thibgs to do or watch out for. But when there’s something like walking a long distance or other important but safe and familiar routine, our brain distracts us enough to just focus on one step in front of the next. But there are lots of moving parts so sometimes these traits pop up when we feel they are not helpful. So we have another trait of curiosity and sociability to seek answers to things like ‘why do i have a song stuck in my head.’ And then maybe we find clarity that helps us in other downstream ways.
It all runs pretty smoothly most of the time, all things considered.
Scientists, Redditors and composers/producers have no idea, as you can see from reading the comments. We don’t even know for sure why we like music full stop. People cite stuff about earworms and ‘our brains really like patters and some patterns are itchy’ but they have just reworded your question. There is no answer there.
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