Posted to (St. Paul Pioneer Press) Bulletin Board, March 7, 2002
PLEASE RELEASE ME! (RESPONSORIAL)
From Poet X of Portland:
Here's Poet X of PDX,in response to last Friday's Reuters report about the psychological profile of those who get songs stuck in their heads:
"Earworms: What a practical (German) word for them. Great overall information, very … informative! It's interesting to note that it's more common in women. As a gay man, I always wonder when I end up with some quality usually associated with women and wonder at the complexity of 'the whole picture.' I've recognized for decades that it's usually the last song I heard that will become an earworm.
"I'm writing to provide further written evidence that the sources of these earworms are, as reported, too mysterious to fully understand: Other than the last-song-heard earworms, I do not understand the significance of two other irritating (ear-itating?) earworms, other than the fact they were learned from that Prozac of the masses, television:
"(1) I don't like them, never have, even before their theme song became my least favorite earworm: 'the snack that smiles back, Goldfish.' Grrrrr.
"(2) I'm Older Than Dirt myself and never learned the song 'John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt' and have never had children in my immediate environment to teach it to, sing along with, or anything. So why is this song, learned well after I was 35-plus, and then only inadvertently (and all I know are two lines), such a bugaboo? Ewwww.
"May your March be august!"
LAW FIRM of the day: Grrr and Ewww
(I'm responding to a previous entry about recurring songs-in-the-head. That writer said there's a German word, "earworm," to describe the phenomenon, how it is more common in women, usually happens with the last song heard, and other valuable info. -gcb)
