The Earworm Thread

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  • gurnemanz
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 7382

    #16
    Originally posted by Pianorak View Post
    And from another annoying, nit-picking pedant: the plural of Ohrwurm is, of course, Ohrwürmer.

    http://yourdailygerman.wordpress.com...y-der-ohrwurm/
    How annoying to be an annoying pedant that gets things wrong. Sorry about that. I'll double-check next time. Hardly any masculine nouns take an "er" plural.

    Comment

    • Lateralthinking1

      #17
      Rather like "mind's eye", the "ohrwurm" is being discussed on the basis of an assumption. That is, that everyone is talking about the same thing.

      Throughout my life, I have had days in which one song or musical phrase has returned to me umpteen times. It can be infuriating and rather like some sort of compulsive thought like "did I leave the front door open when I left the house today?".

      While very clearly a piece of identifiable music, I would say that it is a rather silent thing, at most muffled, as if some sort of thought were on a very old magnetic tape. It seems musical because one finds oneself singing it. It also seems uncontrolled but one is more the manager of it than it seems. You say "that damned song again" and then stop. This I think of as the "ohrwurm".

      In the nineties, and under stress, I had a fortnight of something very different. I experienced actual music in my head that was very persistent and far more troubling. I would try my best to recognise it rather like attempting to tune a dial into a radio station. Sometimes I could - of the identifiable, it was inevitably one of two or three songs, sometimes merging - but at other times it was entirely novel and often symphonic. I could pick out individual instrumentation - at times it felt uncanny - but I couldn't get it to stop. It was also far too complex to be able to sing it. In fact when I tried, the music tended to fade at least for a while.

      I did wonder whether this experience was the same as that of classical music composers. Obviously this idea was quite exciting, as well as troubling, but whenever I tried to compose it - ie decide where the music was going - it invariably went somewhere else.

      Comment

      • LeMartinPecheur
        Full Member
        • Apr 2007
        • 4717

        #18
        I hope this isn't too far off-topic, but has anyone else experienced 'communicable earworm disease'?

        When I lived at home as a teenager I might have a tune going round in my head and when I whistled or sang it out loud my dad would quite often say, 'I was just thinking of that tune'. I was enough of a scientist to try to recall if we had both heard the tune recently, or if I'd whistled it before, but I never spotted this being the case. After I was 22 we never lived in each other's pockets again and I don't recall the phenomenon recurring when we met.

        Unfortunately the ol' da is no longer available for scientific inquiry/ experimentation...
        I keep hitting the Escape key, but I'm still here!

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        • Flosshilde
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 7988

          #19
          The (almost finished) Schubertfest has provided me with plenty of Ohrwurms

          Comment

          • LeMartinPecheur
            Full Member
            • Apr 2007
            • 4717

            #20
            Originally posted by Flosshilde View Post
            The (almost finished) Schubertfest has provided me with plenty of Ohrwurms
            Flossie: I hope that's a good outcome...(?)
            I keep hitting the Escape key, but I'm still here!

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            • Flosshilde
              Full Member
              • Nov 2010
              • 7988

              #21
              Is any Ohrwurm a good outcome? Having a few bars of music running through your mind, even if they are by your absolute top favourite composer (which Schubert isn't,btw) can be irritating to say the least.

              Comment

              • Pabmusic
                Full Member
                • May 2011
                • 5537

                #22
                Originally posted by Flosshilde View Post
                Is any Ohrwurm a good outcome? Having a few bars of music running through your mind, even if they are by your absolute top favourite composer (which Schubert isn't,btw) can be irritating to say the least.
                Quite I must admit, that's how I understood the image of an "ear worm".

                Comment

                • salymap
                  Late member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 5969

                  #23
                  I have a very strange phenomenon - going through my head a rather stupid/unkind line of Betjeman " Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough". I don't agree with the sentiment, have nothing against Slough,[never been there] but shall have to look up the poem to get rid of the ear-worm.

                  Comment

                  • Flosshilde
                    Full Member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 7988

                    #24
                    Slough
                    Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
                    It isn't fit for humans now,
                    There isn't grass to graze a cow.
                    Swarm over, Death!

                    Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
                    Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
                    Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
                    Tinned minds, tinned breath.

                    Mess up the mess they call a town-
                    A house for ninety-seven down
                    And once a week a half a crown
                    For twenty years.

                    And get that man with double chin
                    Who'll always cheat and always win,
                    Who washes his repulsive skin
                    In women's tears:

                    And smash his desk of polished oak
                    And smash his hands so used to stroke
                    And stop his boring dirty joke
                    And make him yell.

                    But spare the bald young clerks who add
                    The profits of the stinking cad;
                    It's not their fault that they are mad,
                    They've tasted Hell.

                    It's not their fault they do not know
                    The birdsong from the radio,
                    It's not their fault they often go
                    To Maidenhead

                    And talk of sport and makes of cars
                    In various bogus-Tudor bars
                    And daren't look up and see the stars
                    But belch instead.

                    In labour-saving homes, with care
                    Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
                    And dry it in synthetic air
                    And paint their nails.

                    Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
                    To get it ready for the plough.
                    The cabbages are coming now;
                    The earth exhales.



                    Apologies for quoting it in full, but it is a rather complex poem - at least, when I just read it (for the first time - like Sally, I only knew the first 2 lines) my feelings about what Betjeman was saying swung all over the place.

                    Comment

                    • cloughie
                      Full Member
                      • Dec 2011
                      • 22115

                      #25
                      I have in my head the finale of Schubert 9 - maybe it's my subconcious telling me the Schubert has finished, or maybe I've just listened to it!

                      Comment

                      • salymap
                        Late member
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 5969

                        #26
                        Thanks Flossie, saved me looking in my Betjeman book but why is it haunting me?

                        Comment

                        • Pianorak
                          Full Member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 3127

                          #27
                          Bruckner symphonies 1 & 2 have so far failed to dislodge this Ohrwurm: The opening bars of Evocación from Albeniz's Iberia. But since I prefer the latter to the former I shouldn't really complain, should I.
                          My life, each morning when I dress, is four and twenty hours less. (J Richardson)

                          Comment

                          • Serial_Apologist
                            Full Member
                            • Dec 2010
                            • 37617

                            #28
                            Originally posted by Pianorak View Post
                            Bruckner symphonies 1 & 2 have so far failed to dislodge this Ohrwurm: The opening bars of Evocación from Albeniz's Iberia. But since I prefer the latter to the former I shouldn't really complain, should I.
                            No indeed Pianorak; and you really shouldn't be surprised either.

                            Comment

                            • Lateralthinking1

                              #29
                              Originally posted by salymap View Post
                              I have a very strange phenomenon - going through my head a rather stupid/unkind line of Betjeman " Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough". I don't agree with the sentiment, have nothing against Slough,[never been there] but shall have to look up the poem to get rid of the ear-worm.
                              And with less elegance, echoed in tone by Steven Morrissey. His lyrics to 'Everyday is Like Sunday' were mainly inspired by a visit to Borth in Wales and Nevil Shute's novel 'On the Beach' but are clearly also a reference to JB's 'Slough'

                              Trudging slowly over wet sand
                              Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen
                              This is the coastal town
                              That they forgot to close down
                              Armageddon - come Armageddon!
                              Come, Armageddon! Come!

                              Everyday is like Sunday
                              Everyday is silent and grey

                              Hide on the promenade
                              Etch a postcard :
                              "How I Dearly Wish I Was Not Here"
                              In the seaside town
                              ...that they forgot to bomb
                              Come, Come, Come - nuclear bomb

                              Everyday is like Sunday
                              "Win Yourself A Cheap Tray"
                              Share some greased tea with me
                              Everyday is silent and grey

                              Comment

                              • ahinton
                                Full Member
                                • Nov 2010
                                • 16122

                                #30
                                Originally posted by Pianorak View Post
                                Bruckner symphonies 1 & 2 have so far failed to dislodge this Ohrwurm: The opening bars of Evocación from Albeniz's Iberia. But since I prefer the latter to the former I shouldn't really complain, should I.
                                Clearly your inner ear's been Powelled into submission!

                                Comment

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