h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I often get afflicted with brainworms when I'm rehearsing for a concert where pieces of music will go through my brain often at 0300! Usually it is the easiest to remember part of whatever I'm singing but it can happen with popular songs or advertising jingles as well. No, I don't think it is necessarily the best songs or music that gets lodged in the brain, sometimes it is the opposite! Sometimes a song which has chords or harmonies similar to a song I know can send me off. I find that the best way of getting rid of it is to play or sing something completely different. It often works for a while.

I find the same thing - I can be assaulted by tenor harmony lines at any time of day or night (and not necessarily the harmony lines from whatever I'm rehearsing at the time, it can be from up to 10 years ago!). If it's for something I'm working on, this is quite helpful, if not it's rather irritating as harmony lines on their own sound quite odd.

I find The Rhythm of Life to be an excellent song for getting rid of earworms, but it can often become one itself...

I was under the impression that we'd all adopted the German version of this: Ear worms?

Me too!, as featured on the 6Music breakfast show.

Also I read once (can't remember where now) that an earworm sticks in your head as a kind of screensaver for your brain while it's not doing anything else.

Which would explain why I always have one!

This is often the case: a cure for brainworms (earworms) can also of itself infect you with the new tune and become as much of a nuisance as what you were trying to get rid of. Perhaps the answer is to have a small catalogue of tunes that you can use one after the other.

We like the idea of that. A sort of internal iPod.

Love the idea too!