Wed 28 May 2008
What’s the worst Earworm you’ve ever heard? Which one can’t you get out of your head? How long did it stick with you?
Posted by dbl6 answers so far!
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THANKS for getting that one stuck in my head again. :P Darn that Lamb Chop!
I can’t say there’s a worst earworm I’ve had… I get annoyed by a lot of songs. I hate it when I’m trying to go to sleep at night and I have one I don’t like stuck in my head. I usually listen to something else which helps.
I’ve had “Yankee Doodle” stuck in my head as sort of a default idle-loop song for I think literally a decade at this point. It’s not always there, it’s not usually very present, but I’ll be goddamned if it doesn’t just pop up way, way more often than you’d think.
Oddly enough, it’s been largely supplanted in just the last couple years by “Such Great Heights” by the Postal Service. I don’t know why that, either.
My problem usually isn’t with earworms that won’t in the shorter-term sense go away, though; what gets me is how easily this stuff will jump into my ears in the first place. I’ve gotten songs running through my head based only on someone saying a word that rhymes with a key word in the chorus of said song, etc. My brain is a menace in this respect.
It takes very little stimulus to give me an epic headstick. Lately it’s been “King Tut,” but I have a ton of them — especially when I’m mowing the lawn, walking dogs, anything physical that leaves my mind idle. Some of the most tenacious ones: “Tiny Bubbles,” “Battle of New Orleans,” “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves,” “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” (replete with Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine moves and Chuck Barris gestures), and “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby.”
There was a very cool “earworm replacement tool” a few years back, is that site still alive?
Sweet Caroline is a bad one for me, and reeeeally got me on our cruise recently, which is really a slam on Margaritaville. But hey, we frequented the piano bar, where this guy sang a special Bob Bob Bob version.
The default songs that occupy my mind when I’m doing things that are fairly mindless:
* Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me, TISM
* The Wanderer, U2/Johnny Cash
* And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, Eric Bogle
* The Gambler, Kenny Rogers
* Hurt, NIN/SadKermit/Cash
* Downbound Train, Springsteen
* And I Love Her, Beatles
* Almost, Bowling for Soup
* Ball and Chain, Social Distortion
Mind, I don’t actually like all of those…
None is really an earworm, though. I did once get the cover of “I Think We’re Alone Now” by Tiffany stuck in a really dreadful way.
I find youtube is awesome at curing earworms. Watch the video for a song you can’t get out of your head 35 times over two days pretty much puts it to bed, I find.