5 Surefire Techniques to Beat the Earworm Blues

My 5th ever post, as pertinent as ever, with a summer ‘23 makeover

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

I figured I’d start with a clickbait title to reel you in. Did it work?

Up until now, I’ve written mostly about what earworms are.

Bits of songs — usually a line or two of lyric but it could be an instrumental section too — covered in sticky goo that latch onto your brain and repeat over and over, leading to such behaviors as excessive drinking, crying, begging, praying, and finally a few swigs from a Nyquil™ bottle (grape flavored), hoping medicated sleep will make it go away. Or maybe that’s just me.

I’ve told tales of specific songs, shared lyrics that have dug their way into my brain, and glommed on like a stubborn tick (are there non-stubborn ticks?). I’ve shared many examples of such earworms.

“Easy Lover” by Philip Bailey & Phil Collins. “Toxic” by Britney Spears. “Who Let the Dogs Out?” by Baha Men. Just to name a few.

Many of you have thanked me profusely (using some creative language!) for putting those songs into your heads.

But a question from a reader made me realize I hadn’t yet written about a very important topic.

What is the best way to respond when trapped in an endless earworm loop? Are there methods, procedures, old wives’ tales to help me lessen the worminess of this condition? 

So glad you asked. After years of intensive study and decades of flailing away aimlessly at the nasty critters, I’ve come up with 5 surefire tips and tricks to combat the pesky earworm. 

1. Fight fire with fire

This method is best suited for the earworm that is persistent but doesn’t follow a predicable pattern. It lulls you into a false calm, believing you’ve outlasted its looping powers. But then, just when you think it’s gone, it’s back, calling out “Remember me?”

Let’s say your earworm is Tom Petty’s “Running Down A Dream.” And the lyrics…

Running down a dream / That never would come to me

Working on a mystery /Goin’ wherever it leads

…are stuck in your head on repeat. It’s there first thing in the morning: as soon as you wake up, while you make your coffee, when you are out walking the dog, on your way to work (even if work is the home office). Those two insidious lines keep humming away. But now it’s mid-afternoon and you realize it’s been hours since “Running Down a Dream” had played ping-pong in your noggin. Now it’s back again in full force. Ugh. Here’s what you do:

Play the entire song 5 times in a row. It might take 10 or 15 times.

Don’t have the CD or Tom Petty’s 1989 album Full Moon Fever? Search for it on YouTube, play it in a streaming service. Borrow it from a friend. The key is to flood your brain with a sample larger than the space the earworm takes up. Think of it like cutting out a melanoma; you want to have wide margins so the cancer has less of a chance of coming back. 

If it isn’t an earworm that truly tortures you, this method will work. If you try it with an A-level, constantly looping song, this “flooding” technique can backfire and cause the worm to sink in deeper.

2. Fight Fire with Air 

This is similar to Fight Fire With Fire, but instead of bombarding the repeat offender with its own larger source material, you choose a lower strength earworm to snuff it out. It could even be a different song by the artist “in mind.” Something that pleases you but doesn’t have real staying power.

Using the Tom Petty example above, you might choose “First Flash of Freedom,” an excellent track from the 2010 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album Mojo. “FFoF” is tuneful, but isn’t super catchy. It’s got more of a jammy vibe than a pop vibe. And more importantly, it’s like seven minutes long, so you will get excellent looping mileage out of it.

3. Fight Fire with Water

Otherwise known as the “drowning method.”

This technique is similar to #2, but instead of using songs by the same artist with a less pervasive history, less of a mental grip, you replace the earworm with songs by other bands or artists.

This method requires a bit of pre-planning. I suggest if you use Spotify or Apple Music or some other streaming software, to create a Fight Fire With Water playlist. Build this playlist with a collection of tunes that you know and like, ones that might even be earworm-worthy. It’s the sequencing that matters.

Begin the list with a medium-high strength earworm tune, one from your formative years, and end it with a song that you really like but you don’t have emotional connotations with. It shouldn’t have been used in a commercial or a movie. I’d suggest ending with a song that doesn’t have a saxophone solo or whistling in it. Ideally it’s a song released in the past decade.

It’s best to keep your list chronological. Start with a song from when you were maybe 9 or 10 and work up to something recent. I would suggest including 5-10 songs for this playlist.

Think of it as tapering off. You’re trying to wean yourself from your addiction. You don’t want to go cold turkey or you’ll likely end up relapsing. 

Everyone’s playlist will be unique, but to give you a sample, here’s mine. Most of the songs are potential earworms, but for me, they taper off and end with two songs from about ten years ago.

4. The Manilow Effect

Let’s say you are in bed sleeping soundly, and are startled awake with a vague sense of dread. Your heart is racing, but whatever scary dream you’d been having is gone. All that remains from that nightmare is a song, or a lyric or a melody.

“Oh, Mandy/How you gave and you gave without taking/And I sent you away oh Mandy.”

And repeat.

I call it the Manilow Effect, but this might just be my example. Replace Barry Manilow with the one artist or band that you have a distinct love/hate relationship with. This will almost always be someone(s) that you first heard as a child or pre-teen. 

For me, I grew up hearing an inordinate amount of Barry Manilow and Barbra Streisand. And Air Supply (that band in particular “supplies” countless earworms for me). Using methods 1-3 will not work on such artists. These songs are too embedded. They are in our DNA (Do Not Aggravate).

And what’s worse, these songs, these earworms, they attack when you are unable to fight back. Maybe it occurs to you to keep your headphones and iPad next to the bed so you can attempt to quickly drown it out with another song or songs (method #3).

Don’t waste your time. This will not work. The only way out is through.

Give in. Sing it out. Wake up your partner, your dog, your neighbors. With a heart full of anguish cry out: “I write the songs that make the whole world sing!”

Thrash about, convulse, speak in tongues, feel the feels deeply. Catharsis will arrive (usually after being forced to sleep in the garage), and then you can move on. The trick is to suffer at a level equal to or greater than the suffering that the earworm has triggered. It’s a delicate balance, but with practice you’ll learn when you’ve reached the proper dual-suffering zone.

#5. The Reverse-Transference Method

Also known as the Spread-The-Love method. Do you have the 1982 hit song by Men Without Hats, “Safety Dance,” dancing in your head, making you want to scream? 

“No! And now I’m going to kill you!”

Tell all your friends about it! Write a post on Twitter (I mean X), or Facebook or Instagram or Notes (if you are a Substack user) or any other social media. You’ll probably get responses like: “No!” And “I’m going to kill you!” And from your more supportive friends: “I’m so sorry you’re going through this.”

But regardless of the nature of the comments, the end result is the same: you feel a lot better afterward!

“Safety Dance” suddenly seems less oppressive, and what’s more, you feel less alone. Sure, you’ve sent your earworm out into the world to infect others, but sometimes you have to prioritize yourself in a time of need.

And if you aren’t on social media but happen to be a writer, write a Substack newsletter post about it! Get people to read your words about earworms while at the same time treating your own chronic earworm condition! It’s a win-win!

• These 5 techniques should help for most earworm conditions, but your mileage may vary.

• Let me know in the comments which of these double-blind studied methods work best for you!

• It probably goes without saying: headphones add to the effectiveness of these steps.

• And if you have your own successful process of ear-radication, I’d love to hear about that too! I’m sure others would benefit from your wisdom as well.