Earworms

So the song Log got stuck in my head today. You know, from Ren & Stimpy. The video completely cracks me up, and of course I'm most obliged to share the earworm so you can enjoy it too.


I wonder who came up with the term earworm? I mean, it's not a nice term. It's slightly strange, actually. It makes me think of some fat white writhing beast, a little like a maggot, that crawls across your pillow at night, enters your ear, latches onto your brain with its mouth thing like on a tapeworm, sucks it out during the night, and turns you into a zombie. (Feel free to hold me responsible for putting that lovely image into your head.) They should call it ear-itch, or repeater, or something like that.

And speaking of which, did you know there's a science to earworms? Nobody knows exactly why they happen. Apparently, though, it is because they cause some sort of cognitive itch, and the only way to get it to go away is to scratch it. And the only way to scratch it is by playing the song in your head... over and over and over again... until you want to scream. And repetitive songs or songs with sudden twists seem to be more likely to cause these cognitive itches. So, you learned something new today.