What are earworms, and how do they relate to music that you can't stop thinking about?

It always starts in the middle. A stray lyric, a half-remembered chorus, a few bars of melody that break into your day like an uninvited guest. You might be walking to work, rinsing dishes, or trying to send a work email, when it lands — the opening hook, the rhythm you didn’t ask for — and suddenly you’re stuck. It loops, refrains, repeats. It doesn’t care that you have things to do.

Right now, mine is a Bob Seger track I never liked. It resurfaced during the closing credits of a movie I watched out of mild curiosity, the kind of film you immediately forget except for one detail. In my case, that detail was the song. Two weeks later, it’s still there, circling my brain like an unwelcome drone.

A century ago, Germans had already named this experience. The term öhrwurm — earworm — appears in cultural records from more than a hundred years back, long before “Baby Shark” or TikTok made catchy hooks feel like an inescapable design feature of daily life. The Kennedy Center notes that the word was coined to describe a song that lodges itself in your mind and refuses to leave. In the pre-streaming era, it might have been a waltz, a hymn, or a vaudeville tune. Today, it’s whatever snippet happens to collide with your attention long enough to trip your brain’s repeat button.

Earworms aren’t just random background noise. Music psychologists and neuroscientists have studied them enough to map what’s happening. At their core, they’re a form of auditory imagery — the brain’s ability to hear a sound internally without any external stimulus. The auditory cortex, located in the temporal lobe, is responsible for processing music and lyrics. When you hear a familiar song and it cuts off abruptly — say, when a movie fades to black or a social media clip ends — your brain often keeps anticipating the next part. That anticipation becomes a loop.

It’s not just the act of hearing that triggers it; it’s the structure of the song. Earworms tend to be simple enough to remember but complex enough to keep the brain engaged. They’re often built around a hook that’s easy to hum, paired with a rhythm that’s just slightly surprising. Even in silence, those neural pathways can stay activated, replaying the catchiest part long after the external sound is gone.

No one is immune, but some people are more susceptible. Kelly Jakubowski, a music psychology researcher at Durham University, has found that individuals who score high on openness to experience — a personality trait linked to curiosity and imagination — report earworms more often. Her research also shows that women tend to experience them more frequently. Other studies suggest that people who are prone to stress, anxiety, or boredom may be more likely to get stuck. The theory is that when the brain is over- or under-stimulated, it leans on familiar internal patterns, and a well-known song is a perfect fit.

The statistics make them sound almost universal. More than ninety percent of people in large-scale surveys report having an earworm at least once a week. Despite the occasional social media claim that they’re a sign of ADHD or OCD, in most cases they’re harmless and not linked to any clinical condition. Yes, people with obsessive-compulsive tendencies may experience them more intensely or find them more disruptive, and there are rare cases where they cross into musical hallucinations. But for the vast majority, they’re just an oddly persistent quirk of the mind.

Some songs are designed to have this effect. In a study analyzing pop music, Jakubowski found that earworms are more likely to have an upbeat tempo and melodic contours that resemble nursery rhymes. Many also feature sudden leaps in pitch — big jumps that make them stand out from other melodies. In her data, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” topped the list, followed closely by Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” a title that doubles as a diagnosis.

The viral mechanics of social media have only made this stickiness more potent. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels feed you the same five to ten seconds of a song again and again, often as the soundtrack to unrelated content. You don’t need the whole song to lodge it in your brain — just the fragment, repeated enough to become a mental reflex. Sometimes that clip is the only part most people know. When they finally hear the full track, they might find it underwhelming or completely different in tone. By then, the hook has done its job.

And yet, earworms aren’t purely a nuisance. There’s evidence they can be useful. One study found that if a song is tied to a specific event, people who later experience it as an earworm have better recall of the details from that event, even weeks later. It’s as if the brain is replaying the song as a cue to reinforce memory. That’s a nice thought if your loop is a beloved wedding track or the soundtrack to a perfect road trip. Less so if it’s an ad jingle or a song you can’t stand.

Getting rid of an earworm is notoriously hit-or-miss. The most common tactic — listening to the song all the way through — is based on the idea of giving your brain closure. By hearing the unresolved parts, you let the loop complete itself. Swapping it for another song can work if the replacement is less grating. Cognitive distraction, like having a conversation or doing a task that requires focus, can temporarily push the loop aside. Even chewing gum has shown measurable effects in experiments, possibly because it disrupts the motor processes linked to auditory imagery.

But there’s also the paradox: the harder you try to banish it, the deeper it embeds. Attention is fuel, and by focusing on how much you want the song gone, you inadvertently keep it active. Acceptance, as unappealing as it sounds, can sometimes be the quickest route to relief.

Earworms have their own digital afterlife. On TikTok, they’re used deliberately, chosen to maximize shareability and recognition. Creators bank on the idea that if a hook gets stuck in your head, you’re more likely to remember their content or return to it. In this way, earworms function like inside jokes — except the joke is on your cognitive autonomy. A chorus becomes a shared signal, passed from video to video, person to person, until it’s as much a part of the platform’s culture as any visual trend.

This makes earworms strangely social. Admitting what’s stuck in your head is a small act of vulnerability, one that often sparks a round of confessions. Friends counter with their own stuck songs, sometimes in an effort to overwrite yours. Group chats weaponize them for fun, trading lyrics like low-stakes sabotage. There’s an intimacy in the exchange: here’s the loop I can’t escape, now it’s yours too.

Sometimes they’re just harmless background noise. Other times, they can cross into territory that’s more disruptive. A song that plays relentlessly for days can interfere with concentration, sleep, and mood. For a small number of people, especially those dealing with certain neurological conditions, they can become a form of intrusive thought that’s genuinely hard to live with. But for most, the main consequence is irritation — a reminder that your brain has its own priorities, and they don’t always match yours.

When my own Bob Seger loop finally broke, it wasn’t because of any clever trick. I didn’t listen to it all the way through. I didn’t chew gum. I didn’t meditate it out of existence. I just lived with it until it faded, replaced by Def Leppard’s “Too Late for Love,” which I actually enjoy. That switch felt like an upgrade, though I know better than to think it will be permanent. Another song will arrive eventually, uninvited, and the cycle will start again.

The persistence of earworms says something about the media ecosystem we live in. We are surrounded by sound bites engineered for memorability, and our platforms are built to repeat them. A song stuck in your head isn’t just an accident; it’s the end product of design choices made by musicians, marketers, and algorithm engineers. They might call it virality, but in practice, it’s about controlling attention — even in the private spaces of your mind.

We talk about them so much online not just because they’re annoying, but because they’re one of the few moments where we can collectively admit we’ve been influenced. We can laugh about it, turn it into a meme, build solidarity over our shared mental soundtracks. But underneath the humor is the knowledge that, when it comes to certain hooks, our brains don’t stand much of a chance.

And maybe that’s why, when a song finally lets go, the quiet feels like a gift. Not because you’ve beaten the earworm, but because for a brief moment, your head belongs entirely to you again — until the next one decides it doesn’t.