Why Do Songs Get Stuck in Your Head?

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Have you ever had a song continue to loop in your brain no matter how hard you tried to shake it? These “earworms” are more than just an annoyance—they’re a phenomenon scientists have studied for years. This episode dives into what makes certain melodies stick, why some tunes are more persistent than others and what our listeners shared as their most unforgettable earworms. Recommended reading: How Do You Solve a Problem Like an Earworm? Email us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy, and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was reported and co-hosted by Josh Fischman. Emily Makowski, Shayna Posses, and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Here's the truth about AI.
0:02.0	AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into.
0:05.0	ServiceNow puts AI to work for people across your business,
0:09.0	removing friction and frustration for your employees,
0:12.0	supercharging productivity for your developers,
0:15.0	providing intelligent tools for your service agents to make customers happier.
0:19.0	All built into a single platform you can
0:21.9	use right now. That's why the world works with ServiceNow. Visit ServiceNow.com
0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people. For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.
0:37.0	You know that feeling when you just can't get a song out of your head?
0:41.0	Just a short part of it playing over and over.
0:44.5	Right now, my brain is chewing on the Muppet Show theme
0:48.2	because I just watched a live stream charity event
0:51.9	where a bunch of my favorite comedians, including some from Dropout,
0:55.9	which longtime listeners know I'm a huge fan of, did a onstage reading of The Muppet Show.
1:02.0	So right now it's just, you know, it's time to play the music.
1:05.9	It's time to light the lights over and over again.
1:09.0	So thanks for that, folks.
1:12.8	A lot of people call those annoying little ditties earworms, fragments of songs that crawl into your mind and just don't
1:18.9	want to leave. And scientists have actually done quite a bit of research to figure out why some
1:23.6	tunes wriggle their way into our heads better than others. You've probably dealt with your
1:28.7	own share of earworms. In fact, in a few previous episodes, I asked all of you to send in some
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Scientific American, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Scientific American and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.