“Brainworms are usually stereotyped and invariant in character. They tend to have a certain life expectancy, going full blast for hours or days and then dying away, apart from occasional afterspurts. But even when they have apparently faded, they tend to lie in wait, a heightened sensitivity remains remains, so that a noise, an association, a reference to them is apt to set them off again, sometimes years later. And they are always nearly fragmentary. These are all qualities that epileptologists might find familiar, for they are all strongly reminiscent of the behavior of a small, sudden-onset seizure focus, erupting and convulsing, then subsiding, but always ready to reignite.”
-Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks
As per usual, Oliver Sacks has produced a wonderfully interesting book. I haven’t finished it yet but several things have already resonated with me including the above. Does everyone hear music all the time? Does everyone experience, more specifically, the above pattern? I have always assumed yes to both since they are normal for me but apparently, while they are fairly common, they are not universal.
Do you hear music all the time? Is it always what you’d like to hear? Personally, I’ve been trying to ditch this extremely annoying jingle for what seems like 30 years.
Comments (14)
I hear music occasionally. Almost always a commercial or song I don’t want to hear.
I hear music in my head quite a bit, and any kind of association is apt to set off a song in my head (e.g., I just heard of a podcast yesterday called Stash and Burn and since then, I’ve had OK Go’s song It’s a Disaster going through my head incessantly (there’s a “crash and burn” line in it). Christmas songs tend to get lodged firmly in my head, though they’re not at all welcome there. Once in a while I’ll wake up in the morning with classical music going through my head and I can hear every different instrument. It’s amazing. Sometimes it’s not even a piece I can recognize. For the most part, I can’t at all control what music goes through my head, but I like enough of it that I’d rather have it than not.
I get good and bad. The bad is usually small snippets or commercial jingles FROM HELL. The good is liable to be anything from western swing to Bjork. I couldn’t begin to guess what song will greet me when I wake up each morning.
A musicless mind is an empty mind, I say.
Sometimes yes, but not constantly. Sometimes it’s infuriating, usually it’s bearable, but I’d rather actually listen to music than “imagine” it.
This morning I had two – Bjork’s “Mouth’s Cradle” and Yo La Tengo’s “Tears Are In Your Eyes”.
Give me a break. Give me a break. Break me off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar.
simon: Those are both good.
sgazzetti: You suck.
Is it just me, or do you also have a compulsion to re-read, immediately, Sacks’ books once you’ve finished them?
Sometimes, I feel that I should just donate all my other books and simply spend the rest of my life re-reading all of Sacks’ books. Had a chance to read his pseudo-bio, Uncle Tungsten? Gorgeous, simply gorgeous.
Head for Busch beer (head for the mountains) Head for Busch beer (head for the mountains) and on and on and on…
DarkoV: Yes, I do have that compulsion. Also, I am way behind on reading his books for the first time.
marigoldie: aaarrrgghhh!
Mine starts out as “Oh how I love cabin…” when I’m at the cabin (Trot Valley to you) to the tune of “Oh how I love Jesus…”! My mother, bless her heart, drove me insane with that song as a child…and now. You know, subtle brainwashing technique….
And, DAMN, if it doesn’t turn back into “Oh how I love Jesus…” in my stinking head. And then, I’m stuck in children’s christian song hell….
Cynthia: Yikes. Somehow the following got lodged in my brain. I think it was from one stray trip into a Sunday school class when I was a kid. Sing it with me, won’t you:
Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.
If I had children, I don’t think I’d want a strange bearded man convincing them that he loved them and that they “belonged to him” based on a book that the children either can’t or haven’t read.
CRAP!!! Now that one is there too! My eternal thanks, my friend!