Have you ever heard of an earworm? It’s a song that gets stuck in your head and we suffer greatly from them around here. We saw Les Miserables (for the 2nd time) a few weeks ago and there has not been a day gone by that I haven’t woken up with one of the songs in my head. It’s like I’m looping the soundtrack in my head all the time. We’ve all been going through it and we’ve even tried to tease each other by singing the songs to get everyone stuck on the same one at the same time. I seem to be especially hung up on “Red, the blood of angry men…” for some reason.
The only other time a musical play has stayed in my brain so long was when we saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Hale Theater. I didn’t think I would ever be able to quit singing “I look handsome, I look smart, I am walking work of art.” It went on for months!
Nobody seems to get earworms like my son Alex though. He is the master of them and there have been times he has driven us all to the brink of insanity by singing them. I can’t remember how old he was when one of the teachers (at the Carmen B. Pingree school for autism) asked us very kindly if we could not let him listen to Mr. Roboto by Styx anymore. We still laugh about that one!
We had to enforce a similar ban on Sweet Home Alabama for a few years because he once he got started on it, he couldn’t stop. It was a long time before we could all listen to that song again.
And I’m sure my Mom will still remember his constant singing of Feliz Navidad during her December visit in 2005. We thought it would never stop!
Thankfully, he has gotten better about this over time. He loves so many different types of music and he’s constantly listening to songs so he seems to have quite a playlist that he rotates through. Every once in awhile, he will get stuck on a certain song and we hear it coming from the shower for several days in a row. As for my own earworms, I still get them. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that “Am I man or am I a Muppet?” stayed with me for MONTHS after seeing The Muppets movie. My kids think this is so funny that sometimes they will randomly start singing it just to get me stuck on it again. I seriously can’t shake it!
What songs play over and over in your head? Do you or someone you love suffer from earworms? Is there a cure? If so, please tell me!
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