This morning I woke up with Hasa Diga Eebowai from BOM stuck in my head. This happens a lot with this particular song. I don't know why. I like it, but it's not one of my favorites, and I don't even own the BOM cast recording. This got me thinking of why we get songs that aren't even our favorites stuck in our heads. What is its about some songs that just stick with you?
So I'm curious about what other people experience in this regard. What Broadway songs get stuck in your he'd frequently, and is it because they're your favorites or is there some other reason you keep going back to it? I'm interested to see if there are songs a lot of people have in common.
This is a recent thing, since I had never heard Here Lies Love until the other day, but Florence Welch singing the title song on the concept album has been stuck in my head for the past week.
"Contentment, it seems, simply happens. It appears accompanied by no bravos and no tears."
I read somewhere that there's a new word for songs that get stuck in people's heads: earworms. (I hate to think why -- I've always suspected that the term comes from those gross things in the Star Trek movies that crawl into people's ears and take over.) I'll bet there's a scientific reason that particular melodies get stuck and not others, because many people agree on which songs are earworms and which aren't; how many of us have the Habanera from Carmen get stuck, as opposed to M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E?
To me, the number 1 earworm of all time, even worse than the Mickey Mouse theme, is another Disney number, "It's a small world." Go through Disneyland on the 7-minute boat ride and you'll be singing it for the rest of the day.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
Almost anything and everything. I find that songs from The Wild Party (Lippa), Hair, Show Boat, Gypsy, and Chicago are particularly ear wormy so I have them at the top of my playlist so I can listen to them whenever I need to exorcise that melody from my brain.
Seriously, Evita gets stuck in my head at the least once a day. And this is REALLY random but Gypsy in My Soul from Patti LuPone's Far Away Places album is ALWAYS in my head. And I love it.
Well, at this exact moment I am listening to It's All The Same from Man of La Mancha for the like the 8th time in a row, having just listened to it for the first time just a few minutes ago. I don''t know why (or who's to blame?) but I find it really catchy and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio has a really unique voice. Also, I just got into Porgy and Bess and A Woman is a Sometime Thing has been up there for hours lately! And Ring of Keys was on a loop for several weeks after the Tonys, I'm sure I'm not the only one!
"How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore And a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot In the Caribbean, by Providence impoverished, to squalor Grow up to be a hero and a scholar? The ten-dollar Founding Father without a father"
Bobby And Jackie And Jack is probably the number one contender for me, which drives me nuts because I can never remember half the lyrics so it gets mushed into an endless loop. Runner-up is the entire first, like, thirty minutes of LaChiusa's Wild Party, which I love but not when I'm trying to sleep.
I was just thinking about this the other day after watching the preview video for "The Fix." The song, I assume, is called "One-Two-Three" but that is a guess. I can not get it out of my head.
I don't even know all these so it looks like I've got some exploring to do. :)
thanks all for sharing. I find it interesting.
The other one running through my head lately is "helpless" from Hamilton. Before that it was "wait for it." Can't wait until I have a cast recording since I'm sure the versions running through my head have entirely the wrong lyrics. Hopefully I don't sing the wrong lyrics forever now...
""I can never remember half the lyrics so it gets mushed into an endless loop."
That's literally ALL OF MINE
"
I have the opposite problem. Lyrics stick in my head very well. The reason it's a problem is once they're there, they're there so if I mishear them I'll be forever singing the wrong words, even if o consciously know I'm wrong!