Ohrwurm

[Trapezium Artist]

Ohrwurm (English translation: Earworm or earwig): the German term for a portion of a song or other musical material that becomes stuck in a person's head or repeats compulsively within one's mind (adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm).

For me, it's the roughly 10 second segment of DDD starting at 1:50 where the phrase "Dear dead days" is first sung, followed by the soaring line I haven't quite made out yet and the brilliant descending, chugging guitar, bass, and drum riff.

Utterly compelling, by definition, even if in serious danger of becoming bloody annoying. A man needs his sleep, dammit!

Any part of EIMA stuck in your head like this?

[Gandalf1986]

The DDD riff after the "there's no one else, no one but you"...

KILLER!

[xelerad]

The whole Toys, I listened to it like 15 times today. Can't get it out! (not that I want to, anyway)

[catherine]

My 13-year-old son was complaining today that he had two competing earworms - both Frost* - Hyperventilate and Here is the News. I shall have to play him EIMA and see if that flushes them out and replaces them.
(The poor chap had Barbie Girl as an earworm a couple of years ago - I remember him coming downstairs late at night almost in tears because he couldn't get to sleep as it was playing on a continuous loop in his head.)

[RacingHippo]

My BlackBerry plays a "ding-dong, ding-dong" tune whenever it gets an email.

Unfortunately the ding and dong are the exact same notes and at the same tempo as the piano intro of Wonderland. The only difference is that Wonderland goes "ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong" rather than "ding-dong, ding-dong", but it's close enough that I spend almost every day singing it either in my head or out loud.

[Trapezium Artist]

(The poor chap had Barbie Girl as an earworm a couple of years ago - I remember him coming downstairs late at night almost in tears because he couldn't get to sleep as it was playing on a continuous loop in his head.)

Ouch - nasty indeed, although I have to say that my kneejerk hatred of that song changed somewhat when Aqua turned up as the "real music act" on a Eurovision Song Contest in (I presume) Denmark while the votes were being cast. Their distinctly grungy and not-for-children rendition of Barbie Girl as part of a medley blew everything that had preceded it to smithereens. On YouTube at: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gDX2yefuk7M

I'm torn over earworms: generally they stick because they're brilliant little snippets of music, but man when they stick, do they ever stick, and any pleasure you might normally get out of them very rapidly diminishes.

In that regard, I'm happy to report that that piece of DDD has now dropped back to "Enjoyable" status ...  

[catherine]

Thanks TA - I hadn't seen that before - excellent! Had better not show it to my son though in case it re-infects him!

[Fox_]

nice thread ! I have this 'earworm' today too: the '"for reason'' section in falling down is looping constantly. not that i complain, i can think of a worse phrase, like bridididbibdidedengdengkriiiiiii,,the frog doing Harold Faltenmeijer ..err oh my god...theré it is ..instantly ..what have i done

[Trapezium Artist]

Today's EIMA-earworm for me is the scratchy, buzzy keyboard riff from "Pocket Sun". Will you never let me be, damned Godfreyman!