""I can never remember half the lyrics so it gets mushed into an endless loop."
That's literally ALL OF MINE
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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!
Oh my, where do I begin?! This has happened to me for ages. My showtune earworm attacks are so frequent they border on the clinical! Lol. Here are some recent ones...
"Come to the Fun Home" from Fun Home
"Making Today a Perfect Day" from Frozen Fever
"Yellow Shoes" from The Visit
"Anything Goes" from Anything Goes
"Rotten to the Core" from Descendants (Ugh, shoot me!)
"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.)
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Regarding "earworm": that's the literal translation of a German word which has always described this exact phenomenon. How cool it is being used in English, I did not know that.
I get them all the time. For some reason, singing "Too much in love to care" in my head from Sunset Blvd acts as my personal remedy in severe (meaning annoying) cases. i think one needs to differ between good and bad earworms.
For what it's worth, I heard an academic researcher once say that the best tool they've found to erase earworms is the theme song from I Dream of Jeannie . You're welcome. :)
There must be some formula for predicting which songs will be earworms, since Sodomy has also been one of mine in the past and it would not be my first choice even from Hair. For the past few daysTomorrow Belongs to Me from Cabaret has been on mental replay and while the current reasons may be obvious, this is not the first time that song has gotten stuck in my brain. Something Wonderful from The King and I and Another Suitcase in Another Hall from Evita have also been repeat visitors.