Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-33698957-20190119144005



Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? Most people find it annoying - a minor inconvenience, but I dread the day a fresh set of lyrics start looping around my brain.

I believe earworms are caused by something supernatural. Not a worm or insect, like the name might suggest, but something much bigger, stirring its claws around your brain. Record players or TVs turning on randomly has been a cliché for as long as record players and TVs have been around, but I think the entire thing is just a hallucination. Your brain can’t comprehend the earworm’s activity, so it causes you to see the TV turning on and making noise to put your sweet little subconscious at ease.

You might be sitting in class, or a work desk, or at home, or anywhere where your mind can wander, and you start thinking about a song. It tends to be your favourite or least favourite song; you might not even know the lyrics, yet they come to you clear as day. Verses, or even individual words, loop over and over, rubbing against your mind like sandpaper. No matter how much you try, you lose concentration and focus on the song, whether it’s trying to ‘tune into’ the whole song, or trying to stop it entirely. This is exactly what the earworm wants. For what purpose, I can only guess.

I used to have a little chat forum for people who’ve had similar experiences - earworms gone too far and edging into insanity. Scientists call it ‘paranoid schizophrenia’, but I don’t believe a word of it. Out of every report and thread I skimmed over, nothing came close to my experiences: in my opinion, at least. Allow me to share...

About 8 months ago, I was lying in my bed in an unfamiliar room. I had just moved out of my parent’s place, and a strong emotional cocktail of homesickness, nervousness and freedom was filling my skull to the brim. I switched my iPod on, and started listening to a random playlist, staring at the half-painted ceiling. It was the least I could do to keep my eyes off of the piles of boxes full of flat-pack furniture and childhood memories.

I was just slipping into the tune when the song cut out mid-word. My iPod was fully shut off in the blink of an eye. After a second of scraping my hair back into some sort of style, I got up and grabbed my iPod. No music, just the ringing echo of silence. Unsettled by the sudden change, I ripped my earphones off and thought about unpacking the boxes, then how boring unpacking would be. I’ll just watch some TV,  I thought to myself. As I stumbled down the stairs, my legs still waking up, my iPod turned back on, like nothing had happened. The last syllable of the word it had cut out on flowed through my ears smoothly. Then, with a slow onset of dread, I realized I wasn’t wearing any earphones.

<span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">It definitely wasn’t coming from somewhere else - it had that quality of being played from <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">almost <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> inside your head. I barely resisted the urge to shout for my Mum or Dad, then I remembered I was alone in my house. As a hurricane of thoughts and panic raced around my head, the song changed. Now it was some wannabe Soundcloud rapper: definitely nothing I’d have on my iPod, or even knew of.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">At this point I was terrified out of my wits. What could I do? If I called the police, I’d probably get arrested for wasting their time; the only person that would believe me would be some kind of exorcist. Understandably, there’s no emergency number for ghost-dispellers, so I was out of luck. As my thoughts became more macabre and distorted, so did the music. Sharps and flats started appearing where they shouldn’t, and gradually the entire song started to sound dark and ominous. <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The perfect soundtrack for what’s happening... <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> I laughed at my own joke, if only to dull the adrenaline.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">I have no idea how many minutes or hours passed, listening to the same 2-minute, off-key song, but it felt like days. I almost forgot to blink, mesmerized by the tune. Suddenly, it changed to a romantic pop song by Taylor Swift or something, then to an acoustic guitar solo, and then 90’s EDM, all within a minute. Slowly, the changes sped up and the music became more distorted - low pitch, high reverb. It reached a point where I had no clue about the artist or even genre, it was so fast. Each song only had a couple of syllables to scream at me before warping into another.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">It took too long for me to realize it was speaking. Between the jarring changes of instrument and singer, the words were barely coherent, and sometimes in another language.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘Let…’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘Me!’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘In, ‘cause I…’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘Need!’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘A.’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘Body,’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘Full… of…’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘Blood, sweat and tears.’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘Wr iggh ph r droo ivgfim’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">‘jloqxip tfii ylt’

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">As the words became too distorted to hear, the music slowly faded to static. The static was clear, too clear, drilling into my ears, then into my brain. Everything went black.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">When I woke up, everything was quiet for a change. It was only when I had a near miss with a car that I realized I needed a hearing aid. After a week silently waiting for a fitting session, I promptly visited a psychiatrist. Even they couldn’t make heads nor tails of it, so they dismissed it as some kind of mental problem. I knew in my guts that I wasn’t the problem, so I started the forum, then wrote this after months of no solutions or answers.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Every time somebody switches on the radio, I get vivid flashbacks of that evening. Even after the best part of a year, I haven’t had another earworm since. Maybe it got everything it wanted... <ac_metadata title="Earworm 1.5st (?) Draft"> </ac_metadata>