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Earworms
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It has happened to you. Some song wriggles its way into your brain and won't leave. Now imagine that the distant tune in the back of your head suddenly becomes very real. A real song. Real drums. Real guitar. Volume. These are called musical hallucinations and there are some people who actually suffer from them on a daily basis.
We hear first from Leo Rangell who awoke one day to the sound of a rabbi singing. Twelve years later, the music is still there. He talks with reporter Lulu Miller about what he thinks the music is trying to tell him. Then Michael Chorost-- a writer who abruptly went deaf one day--tells us about how a world without sound is filled with music.
We talk to scientists
Oliver Sacks, Diana Deutsch, and Tim Griffiths to try to understand WHY our brains would produce such vivid music.
photo from tanakawho/flickrCC
Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World by Michael Chorost
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
Leo tells his story on HuffingtonPost
Michael Chorost's blog
Leos's book Music in the Head will be published by Jason Aronson
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When I was little, I had terrifying fever dreams which were entirely musical -- they didn't have any visual element -- and they were exacly like what Leo describes. A song would start out normally, but then it would speed up to a frantic dizzying pace or slow down and down and down. It's impossible to describe how awful this was. I'm so glad I don't have these dreams anymore (though maybe if I had a bad enough fever, they would reappear).
Wow, I remember the brand new trend in the 90s of having the characters on TV and movies holusinating wild things that are expressing their challenges in their current life. The only good example I can remember is the show 'Ali McBeal.' I used to slam others for watching such melodramatic people losing it. While thinking about what they are saying in this program I am thinking I was just to ridgit, because what the beginning of this shows talks about is only in a different medium of communication. Of course, I had never been given this information at that time.
I was captivated by this show and love how the sound "quotes" are engineered. Like Mr. Rangell, I have emotional-musical tags that pop up, but they have been with me since childhood, so I'm well-versed in what they mean in association with my current experience and how I truly feel about them. These little links to the unconscious are also sometimes witty, sometimes compassionate (like the comforting tune that pops in your head just when you need it). Thanks for this reminder of how wondrous and interesting the brain is!
How come I can't listen to this online? I heard it being promoted last Friday and I really wanted to listen to it, but I don't see a download icon or anything. Is it something to do with copyright rules? Thank you for responding.
Where can I get a download of this Earworms program?
i'll ask too, why isn't this episode downloadable?
Your shows are quite a unique experience, I never listened to anything like it before.
Keep up the good work,
-Frank.
PS:
I nearly forgot: I’ve got the same question as my three predecessors – why isn’t this episode downloadable?
Ahh! Where is this one? Help me I might miss a Radiolab!
Keep up the great work guys, but for God's sake don't get me hooked and then forget to post one. I'm in withdrawal here.
I just heard the laughter episode(?) today, listened to an entire show for the first time and I appreciated it greatly. However, I too am interested in downloading or hearing the stream of this music episode for personal enjoyment and educational purposes.
Hey folks! This whole episode will be available online as soon as we podcast it. Which is SOON. April 22!
-->>>Phew!<<<--
Thanks! I'll be counting the days.
yes! i can't wait for tomorrow!
I don't know if this will work for the folks interviewed for this article, but whenever I get a song stuck in my head I sing the theme song to the Monkees (Hey, hey we are the monkees). For some reason that song has a low stickiness factor so once it replaces that other song it goes away. Great show.
This happens to me all the time - I'm amazed that there's a radiolab show on it! Except I don't consider it an affliction that I "suffer" from. Quite the opposite - I treasure it. Admittedly, I don't hear songs change in tempo, so that must help.
I am a songwriter, so when these songs come in my head (with full orchestration) I start to play with it. Sometimes purely original songs - with everything from bass lines and drums intact - start to play. When writing down the melody, I sometimes find it's an amalgamation of all sorts of melodies that I have been listening to throughout the day.
In someways I don't view myself as the "writer", but rather as a human radio receiver for an energy field that is floating around us. We are continually surrounded by hidden melodies - from people talking to buses driving by to the bleeps and bloops of our computers. The sounds of our day seep in, and then start to seep out as a song.
It's beautiful, and I consider myself very lucky to be able to hear it.
Dear Raiolab-
I have an earworm whose meaning, like Leo Rangell, I have pinpointed to a particular moment in my life: listening to Radiolab's program on earworms. Let me explain...
I'm working on my dissertation, and this often requires work at all hours. I find that at 2 in the morning I need to listen to some music to get the energy flowing and stave off the cravivng for sleep. A quick listen to the '90s dance music station usually (unfortunately?) does the trick -- or it did, until I listened to Earworms. You see, one of the staples of the station is the dance remix of "Tom's Diner," the song that was relentlessly hummed at the beginning of the program. The song then becomes lodged in between my brain and my ear, followed quickly by "Those were the days" and various Dolly Parton songs that were played in the rest of the program. On the plus side, I've decided that the only remedy is to stop listening to crappy '90s dance music, so I guess thanks are in order!
I've had these “earworms” all my life. Like Mr. Rangell, the music in my head is a heavy contributor to insomnia, as it can be very hard to sleep when the songs really ramp up. I find that, similar to Mr. Chorost, the music becomes most noticeable when the world is silent – like it’s always there in the background waiting to be heard. It is amazing how intense the sound can be, how loud and distracting it becomes, and it can be very frustrating. However, oddly, sometimes I like it, and I get to worrying when it’s not there. I’m not sure why, but “You Belong To Me” from The Jerk has been a standby for ten or so years, cropping up when I walk to work, when I eat, when I lie down to sleep. At times when I am stressed, and my internal monologue won’t shut off, the music will go away, and it’s like I’m alone. It helps, though, to conjure Bernadette Peters’s sweet, almost childlike voice, and once the song comes to the fore, it shoves the self-loathing, or worry, or doubt away. The trumpet solo can echo for days, but I don’t mind it when there are worse things that could be filling my head.
P.S. to my previous comment:
I didn't even know that this was weird (though I always wanted to believe so). So, thanks, RadioLab, for making me feel special – if a bit worried that I may have been experiencing hallucinatory earworms for two decades. In addition, I would just like to add that Diana Deutsch’s “Sometimes Behave So Strangely” from 2006’s RadioLab kept me awake for weeks!
Dear Sir,
Advertisements for this episode of Radiolab are currently running on WAMU, my friendly local public radio station. The advertisement prominently features repeated play of the pop song "Downtown". The first time I heard the advertisement, I thought it was amusing. The second time I heard it, it was faintly annoying. These days, all my wife and I do is sit around the house and repeatedly scream "WHEN YOU'RE ALONE AND LIFE IS MAKING YOU LONELY YOU CAN ALWAYS GO--DOWNTOWN!!!" at each other. I fervently hope that there is a special circle of hell reserved for you, your producer, your sound engineer, and anyone else involved in the infliction of this auditory monstrosity upon an unsuspecting public radio audience. If there is any justice, it will involve repeated play of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
Sincerely,
Josh
Um, Josh, you do realize that it's your local public radio station that's deciding when and how often to air those promos and not the producers of Radio Lab, right? You should email WAMU - usually local stations really appreciate this kind of listener feedback.
Meanwhile I really enjoyed this episode, wanted to say thank you. I especially found Leo Rangell's story very moving. If I ever end up having to pay for individual podcasts yours is definitely one I'll cough up the money for - in the meantime we contribute to our local public radio station, which unfortunately doesn't carry Radio Lab. Their loss.
great episode explains so much- mostly
I now know I'm not the only one this happens to
i haven't had the "music hallucinations" in a while but i used to have them - it was like a transistor radio, i would hear people talking sometimes it was music- it was frustrating but it was always very distant very hard to hear so it was easily covered up with other sounds.
Another thing I will get songs in my head that seem to answer questions I've had -this happens too much
Oh yeah that part about "70% that get musical hallucinations are deaf"
Would that explain how Beethoven was able to
compose even tho he was deaf?
That would explain alot. Very interesting.
We get rebroadcasts of these shows pretty late in the sticks (No. Ind.) but I'm hoping that this comment still gets read and a response. I thought that the most interesting part of this show was the part on how research had shown that 70% of the nerve info flow in the ears was from the brain TO the ear... a counterintuitive finding. Without trying to download and listen to the whole podcast, can you (or a listener) post again here the name of the researchers involved in this field?
Great show and podcast. This reminded me of a Mark Twain story I read way back in high school. Via Wikipedia, "A Literary Nightmare" is a short story written by Mark Twain in 1876. The story is about Twain's encounter with a virus-like jingle, and how it occupies his mind for several days until he manages to "infect" another person, thus removing the jingle from his mind.
Seems like earworms have been around for a while.
Listening to the broadcast,(Earworms) ,last Saturday, I realized my jaw was hanging open & tears were running down my face.
Thank you for informing and amazing with such skill and sensitivity. Please keep bringing it on!
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