Anatomy of an Earworm

After a month at the mercy of an earworm, I found the cure. Then it all went wrong.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is how music does that.I'm Dale McGowan. I've been working on
an episode for over a month,or mostly not working on it for over
a month. I love the topic, but telling that particular story has some
technical complications that keep irritating me.I'm doing this show for fun, so

(00:23):
if it's not fun, my agreementwith myself is to stop. So I
set that episode aside and the calendarpages flip. I'll get back to it.
It hasn't helped that. Three weeksago, an earworm set itself up
in my head, maybe the mostpersistent earworm I've ever had, three solid
weeks, all day, every day. I don't know how it found me

(00:47):
in the first place. It's aminor character from my distant past that I
just always dismissed as a dumb song. I never found it interesting. It's
stand boom, it's nonstanddop. Nowit says stand bo not gone stop,
long time done, old constant,then almost, then let's talk just the
life at el out and constant.Then open listen miss stan boone not constant,

(01:10):
then alost with you, but theyconstant, then almost you'll be waiting
it. It's stanbol The one reasonI never found Istanbul interesting. Is that.
As I've said before, I'm terriblewith lyrics. All these years,
I thought they were just repeating thesame line over and over. Take me
is than Boom, not constant Dunople. Now it's is Stan Bull, not

(01:30):
constant Dunople. Now it's his stanBoom, not Constantdinople. Something something something
something something something. That's what Iheard. That's not what they're doing.
A part of my usual deworming regimeninvolves taking a closer look at the earworm
of the moment and dissecting it andlistening to it and learning about it.
It never works, but I forgetthat between infections. In this case,

(01:53):
I discovered that it's a much bettersong than I thought. They are not
simply repeating that one line. They'reengaging in my single favorite lyric thing,
clever wordplay, or in this case, sentence play, which is a little
different. The words themselves always meanthe same thing, but the sentences bend

(02:15):
in flex around them. I'm asucker for both wordplay and sentence play.
I like Melan Man has I knowyou don't on your hyme lash maker,
match maker plan me, no plans. I'm in no rush maybe I'm loud,

(02:38):
playing with lashes. A girl cangat burns the reality. Oh the
ghost gravity, Oh the ghost bramity'. He's so bad, but he won't
give up bad he No, hewon't Havety knows it's old bags and he's
roast. It's all matters. Heknows your fasa. You have a beautiful

(03:00):
call, sneak. The song Istanbulwas written exactly seventy years ago as a
one off novelty song by American songwriterNat Simon and Northern Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy,
who also wrote such classics as rillsin the song and the lyrics to

(03:22):
the emotional anthem for everybod the bosswill gather the certain because to day the
day the teddy bed have e.Istanbul was written in honor of the five
hundredth anniversary of the Ottoman Empire's conquestof Constantinople. I'm not kidding. If

(03:43):
you know this song at all,and you are less than one hundred and
twelve years old, you probably knowthe cover by They might be Giants is
stan Bull's conceptinoble Now? Is stanBum the conceptinoble Time gone conceptiny even that
was from nineteen ninety, which wasat least ten years ago. But I'm
kind of a purist when it comesto novelty songs about renaming Turkish cities.

(04:05):
So I'm using the original nineteen fiftythree version by the Four Lads. It's
stand booms constant turnoble. Now it'sjust stand boom, not constant tnob A
long time done, old constant thenalmost tell the Turkish the light on a
loot that time ever Biel and constantthen ople, listen this stand boone,
not constant, then almost old withyou, but Dave Constant then almost you'll

(04:27):
be waiting it. It's stan Bold, even a York boss. What's no
answer why they changed it? Ican't say. You'll just liked it better
that way. Take me back toconstant Denobo. You can't go back,
dude, Constant ternoble. Now it'sjust stand boone, not constant then Obo,
why the constantinov get the worst?That's the old buddies, But the

(04:50):
Turks. Now, anyone out therewho's even more of an Istanbul purist than
I am might notice that I've spedthe Four Lads up a bit. I
was shocked going back to hear howslow the original was. Is stan Boom's
constant Tanoble, Now it's is stanBum, not constant Tanobe. But this
episode is not about the Four Ladsversion, or that they might be Giants'

(05:11):
version. It's about the version thatplayed in my head for weeks, which
was twenty percent faster than the FourLads. So that's what you get.
Now. Those of you who canactually hear lyrics will know from that single
hearing that the Four Lads are notsinging the same line over and over.
They are singing this. Istanbul wasConstantinople, Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople.

(05:32):
Been a long time gone old Constantinople. Now it's Turkish delight on a
moonlit night. Every gal in Constantinoplelives in istan Bum, not Constantinople.
So if you've a date in Constantinople, she'll be waiting in Istanbul. Even
Old New York was once New Amsterdam. Why they changed it? I can't

(05:55):
say. People just liked it betterthat way. Take me back to Constantinople.
No, you can't go back toConstantinople. Now it's Istanbul, not
Constantinople. Why did Constantinople get theworks that's no buddy's business, but the
Turks. Oh, it's awesome.And then you add some touches like the
altered Phrygian mode. At the beginning. You also get a quick reference to

(06:21):
a melody that, if you,like me, are one hundred and twelve
years old, you may know asthere's a place in France where the ladies
wear no pants. This is actuallya very old melody known as the Streets

(06:46):
of Cairo or the Arabian Riff theRaate The hell was that? Oh right,
okay, I've been handed a noteby one of our production interns here
at HMDT. Thank you step Melissa. A decision was made in the Monday

(07:12):
staff meeting. I missed that anew feature is being added to the show.
Yeah, this is actually good.You can't imagine how often I'm working
on an episode and I run intoa topic that turns out to be a
deep and beautiful rabbit hole that reallyneeds its own episode. That happened in
the King of Space age pop whenI started digging into the identities of Escavel's

(07:32):
band members and the episode Unsung wasborn. My most popular episode ever,
Clap when you Damn Well Please cameout of the episode on silence and music
and so on. So somebody onthe project development floor came up with the
idea of using a sound effect todesignate these topics that are calving off like

(07:53):
icebergs from the episode you're listening to, And after some focus grouping and national
polling, the Associates sound designer decidedon the siren whistle as the marker of
a topic that you will soon behearing more about, in this case the
Arabian Riff. Anyway, the ArabianRiff is a little musical shorthand of which

(08:16):
there are several in the West,intended to signal in a completely inaccurate and
reductive way, a geographic area orculture somewhere in the world. In the
case of the Arabian Riff, itgives the song Istanbul that Asia minor slash
Middle Eastern juj And you get cleverlittle touches like Turkish delight, which is

(08:37):
a confection if you don't know thatTurkish Delights has been around even longer than
me an Old New York and thephrase extension on that last verse by the
don Stantanov get the work step that'sold bodies business. But that's important for
a reason. I'll forget to mentionbefore the end. The point is that
Istanbul is a better song than Ithought. It's very clever. I don't

(08:58):
know how it entered my head inthe first place, but why was it
stuck there even before I knew itwas clever? In other words, what
makes a song an earworm? Now? It turns out there have been studies
on this, because, of course, there have not just to understand earworms,
but to shed light on processes inneurology and oral memory and other important
things. Not that earworms themselves areentirely trivial. Ninety percent of people report

(09:24):
experiencing an earworm to some degree atleast once a week, according to Harvard
research psychiatrist David Silberswag. And thething is, earworms take up a lot
of resources in the brain when theyare happening. You know that pop up
that used to say chrome is usingeighty nine percent of ear ram or whatever.
Music, including the earworm, engagesa lot of different cerebral processes at

(09:48):
the same time. The auditory cortexsupports music perception. The hippocampus is important
in memory encoding and retrieval, andthe phonological loop, the process of holding
some that you've heard in your mindtemporarily. That's active in earworms. Obviously
it just fails to disconnect. Thenthere are the emotional regions of the brain,
like the amigdala for fear and theventral striatum for positive emotion and reward.

(10:13):
These are all involved in earworms,yes, even the fear. In
a lot of preliterate cultures, musicwas used together with rhyming to help people
remember oral histories, so our brainsevolved to remember these associations. With earworms,
the connections between these brain regions getstuck on, resulting in an automatic
playing out of musical memories, loopingand looping, especially when the music in

(10:37):
question has certain characteristics. The researchhas found that uptempo music with a clear
beat is more likely to stick youLuck jaggers, comdt them moves luck jaggers,
cove got them move jaggon large leapsand large range from low to high.

(11:01):
It's stand boo, constant and repetitivepatterns, especially A A, A,
B, three phrases the same andone different. It's stand boo's constant

(11:31):
then open it says stand boom,not constant. Then O, long time
down, oh, constant almost ona loot that Elizabeth Helmuth Margulis, an
expert in musical perception, says thatrepetition connects each bit of music irresistibly to
the next bit of music that followsit. Repetition is the motor that drives
it forward. It's the perfect foodfor the loop. A study in the

(11:54):
Journal of Experimental Psychology tried to determineways to break the hold of an earworm.
To break the connections that are stuckopen, you can try distraction right,
doing some other thing that will requirethe use of some of these brain
functions so that you're taking them inanother direction. Earworms enter your head in
what's called low attentional states when youaren't really engaged in an activity. That's

(12:16):
when they get in. Those brainareas are looking for something to do,
and a musical memory floats up andlocks in. Another activity can break the
connections between these brain areas, whichbreaks the music. Or you can just
avoid low attentional states completely. Neverlet your mind rest, keep the worms
out. That same study found thatchewing gum can break an earworm. It's

(12:39):
worth a try. Finally, youcan replace it with another earworm. God
Save the Queen is said to cureearworms for the British, and then you
have God Save the Queen in yourhead forever or king now, I guess
replacement is my usual go to IstanbulClever though it is, was not my
idea of a mind long companion,so I decided to replace it with another

(13:03):
piece of music that is both oneof my favorite film cues and itself an
earworm. I first heard it DjangoUnchained, but it was originally written for
a nineteen eighty three film called underFire. That's a total Tarantino thing.
Tarantino's films are packed to the rafterswith references to other films, the names
of characters, storylines, a particularmodel, year and color of car that

(13:28):
was also in Rebel Without a Causeor whatever. Fritz and Tony, the
names of the horses that King SchultzenDjango ride into Candyland are the names of
the horses of the two great cowboysof the Silent film era, william S
Hart and Tom Mix. He's anabsolute film nerd. When Django is standing
at the bar and a man askshim, and Dango says Django, and

(13:52):
the man asks if he can spellit, and Django does and then says
the d's son, and the mansays, I know. That man is
Franko Nero, who played a characternamed Jango in a nineteen sixty six western,
completely unrelated except for the name inthe opening song. But that's Tarantino.
Everything is homash. There is nota scrap of original music scoring in

(14:13):
Tarantino's first seven films. It's allborrowed from other films and folk songs and
pop songs and hip hop. Soit's not surprising that this cue I love
so much was written by Jerry Goldsmithfor some Nick Nolty flick and I love
it. This low halting march onandian pan pipes is perfectly used in both

(15:48):
films. It's the music of grimdetermination, of moving forward with a purpose.
It kicked Istanbul out of my head, and during the days that it
was my constant soundtrack, I goteverything done until disaster struck. It's stamboul,

(16:41):
It's gone, stands then over.Now it's just stand bo constant,
stand over, the long time,dominal, constant, turnstling, horns,
every gowns, constans, turn over, listens, stand boom comes, that's
turnover over. The birthday. God, is that just stand over? Please

(17:04):
kill me? That was episode sixtyfour of How Music Does That. I'm
rebuilding my audience after two years away, so if you like what you hear,
please like and review the show whereveryou get your podcasts. It's easy
and fine. If you liked thisepisode, find the share button on your
app and let your friends know.Thanks for listening. I'm Dale McGowan.

(17:26):
See you next time, whatever thatmay be for How Music Does That Now