You know that viral TikTok song that goes "oh no, oh no, oh no no no no"?

I can't get it out of my head either. It just keeps looping. It's like the tune has wormed its way into my ear. And that's exactly what it is: an earworm.

What are earworms and why do we get them?

Earworms are involuntary memories triggered by a thought, a mood or an external cue, such as your daily commute — you don't choose them, they just happen. Scientists call them involuntary musical imagery, or INMI for short.

But you will also likely get them if you repeatedly listen to a song or even by simply not doing anything. And you don't even have to understand the words of the song: people get earworms regardless of language and culture.

When you're not actively solving problems or making decisions, your brain switches to a default mode, where it starts connecting ideas, daydreaming, and processing memories, or giving you earworms.

Earworms trigger emotions

Emotion plays a big role in why some songs stick.

"Either we love it and sing along to it, or we hate it and try to make it go away — both responses have the outcome of keeping it in mind, becoming an earworm," Philip Beaman, Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Reading, UK, told DW.

Most people actually like their earworms, said Beaman.

Earworms are strongly connected with memory

You remember or think of all sorts of things during the day, but you can dismiss most of your thoughts — when you're done with them. You think, I'm hungry, and you eat something, and the thought is done. But with songs, it's not that easy.

"If you think about a song, it unfolds over time," explains Beaman.

Earworms are an involuntary memory that plays as a sequence in your mind.

It is unlike the memory of a still image like a photograph.

When you remember a song, you "listen" to it in your mind: You recreate the experience of listening to it in your head, like playing it back. The song activates your auditory cortex, the part of your brain responsible for processing sound.

Earworms are snippets of songs

Earworms are often short — just a few words from a chorus, or a hook, like a melody or a guitar riff [Ed.: Think "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes — daaaa, da-da, da, da, daaaa, da...].

It tends to be small sequences because our brains split large amounts of information into snippets to help us recall them. That has to do with the limits of our working memory.

Your brain can only hold a few seconds of information at a time. Think of it like RAM in a computer — temporary, mental storage for what you're actively doing. Like doing short sums in your head.

The way we remember longer things is such that the beginning and the end of a snippet of information acts as a cue for the next. But if you don't know what comes next, your brain will just repeat that same snippet over and over.

Common characteristics of earworms

It's simple, repetitive songs that tend to be the most common earworms.

"The most popular songs tend to be faster and have unusual melodic patterns in relation to how they rise and fall," Michelle Ulor, music psychologist and independent researcher, told DW.

Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Kylie Minogue "Can't Get You Out of My Head" are still common earworms. Earworms persist. In Minogue's case, it's been decades since the song was originally released.

Interestingly, lyrics aren't always necessary. Both songs have easy non-lyrical vocal parts in them — "Rara-ooh-la-la-ah" (Bad Romance) and "La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la" (Can't Get You Out of My Head) — which are memorable and transcend language barriers.

How to stop an earworm in your head

If you're one of the many people who don't enjoy earworms, a good way to get rid of them is to distract yourself with something else that catches your attention. Be it focusing on work, watching a show, or listening to another song.

Chewing gum has also been shown to work for some people: "There are similar neural pathways involved in both activities," said Ulor.

Listening to the song can also sometimes "complete" the loop, helping your brain move on.

Edited by: Zulfikar Abbany

Sources:

Involuntary musical imagery as a component of ordinary music cognition: A review of empirical evidence. Published by Liikkanen, L., Jakubowski, K. in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (2020) https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-020-01750-7

Dissecting an Earworm: Melodic features and song popularity predict Involuntary Musical Imagery. Published by Jakubowski, K., Finkel, S., Stewart, L., & Müllensiefen, D. in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (2017) https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-53098-001 (abstract)

The Literary and Recent Scientific History of the Earworm: A Review and Theoretical Framework. Published by Beaman, C. P. in Auditory Perception & Cognition (2018) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25742442.2018.1533735 (abstract)