Moth larva (Heliothis zea, family Noctuidae) that damages corn, tomato, cotton, and other seasonal crops. The smooth, fleshy, green or brown caterpillars feed on corn kernels near the tip of the ear and burrow into tomatoes and cotton bolls. Four or five generations of the pale brown adult moths, with wingspans of 1.3 in. (3.5 cm), are produced annually.

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Earworm may also refer to the Helicoverpa zea (corn earworm) or the musician DJ Earworm.

Earworm, a calque of the German Ohrwurm, is a term for a portion of a song or other musical material that becomes "stuck" in a person's "head" or repeats against one's will within one's mind. Use of the English translation was popularized by James Kellaris and Daniel Levitin. Kellaris' studies demonstrated that different people have varying susceptibilities to earworms, but that almost everybody has been afflicted with one at some time or another. A more scientific term for the phenomenon, involuntary musical imagery, was suggested by the neurologist Oliver Sacks in 2007. There have been claims "that earworms may be songs or tunes that become stuck in the phonological loop, the part of the brain that rehearses verbal information in Baddeley's model of working memory. This usually happens when a person sings the song or hums the tune once and then repeats it in his or her mind." However, this information is not supported by any scientifically published information and was presented only as a guess of an unknown author.

Synonyms for earworms include "Last Song Syndrome, "repetuneitis", or in extreme degree "melodymania". A "repetune" is a song or other musical piece stuck in one's mind. Wanted Words, a feature on CBC Radio One's This Morning hosted by Jane Farrow, also once asked listeners to invent a word for this phenomenon. Submitted entries included "aneurhythm" and "humbug".

Medications that are used to treat Obsessive-compulsive disorder or anxiety can alleviate the symptoms of earworms.

Examples in popular culture

• A Calvin And Hobbes strip had Calvin's dad getting up from an armchair and pausing vacantly, before asking his wife, "Why is it that I can recall a cigarette ad jingle from 25 years ago, but I can't remember what I just got up to do?"

• "Tenser" said the Tensor; Tension, Apprehension, and Dissension have begun - This earworm was used to foil telepathic surveillance in Alfred Bester's Hugo award-winning science fiction novel The Demolished Man. It has become a well known meme in the science fiction community.

• Fritz Leiber's 1958 Hugo award-nominated short story Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee describes mankind quickly becoming entirely infected with the eponymous earworm, and its eventual salvation by the means of a colliding earworm which precisely cancels it out.

• Mark Twain wrote a short story named A Literary Nightmare, relating his supposed experience with a poetical earworm.

• Elements of Twain's story are reused in one of Robert McCloskey's Homer Price stories, in which the "Punch, Brothers" earworm is used as a cure for another earworm.

• In the Seinfeld episode "The Jacket", George complains that he has the song "Master of the House" from Les Miserables "stuck in his head". (At the end of the episode, Elaine's father is shown humming the tune, which implies that the earworm is contagious.) Jerry tells George that the composer Robert Schumann went mad because he had had one note stuck in his head.

• Each episode of the television series Lamb Chop's Play-Along ended with an earworm, "The Song That Never Ends"

• Amazon.com's official music blog was initially called "Amazon Earworm".

• In the movie Wayne's World, Mike Myers starts to suddenly sing the song "Mickey" by Toni Basil in the car, then explains to Tia Carrere that it was the last song he heard before leaving the house that morning.

• Many commercials try to develop an earworm effect. The Kit Kat chocolate bar theme is one of many that are famous as an earworm. The "classic" version (in use since 1986) was written by Ken Shuldman (lyrics) and Michael A. Levine (music). Versions have been recorded by Carrie Underwood, Shawn Colvin, and an army of studio singers as well as people who have appeared on-camera in the commercials. The jingle was cited in a study by University of Cincinnati researcher James A. Kellaris as one of the top ten "earworms".

• In the Married... with Children episode "Oldies but Young'uns", the character Al Bundy has Arthur Alexander's song "Anna (Go to Him)" stuck in his head, but cannot remember the lyrics, only "Hmm, hmm, him".
• In the Scrubs episode "My Best Friend's Mistake", the character Dr. Wen has the Erasure song "A Little Respect" played during surgery. This earworm spreads throughout the hospital, as the character Turk says, "like a virus."
• In the 1940s, Spike Jones' "Hut-Sut Song" became known as an especially persistent earworm.
• Henry Kuttner's short story "Nothing But Gingerbread Left" describes a fictional German-language earworm specially engineered by the Allies to destroy the concentration of the Nazis by crowding out all other productive thoughts, during World War II.
• The song Surfin' Bird was sung repeatedly by Peter Griffin in the Family Guy episode "I Dream of Jesus"

See also

• Phonological loop
• Meme
• Motif of harmful sensation
• Tetris effect
• Hook (music)

References