‘With incessant repetition, it soon lost its charm, its lilt, its musicality and its meaning. He shares the story of a friend of his who would get ‘Love and Marriage’ by Frank Sinatra stuck in his mind for up to 10 days at a time. They are often referred to as earworms from the German word Ohrwurm, but Dr. Oliver Sacks devotes an entire chapter of his book Musicophilia to these fragments that get stuck playing on a loop in our brains. I just couldn’t shake the upbeat tempo, the clever lines and the satisfaction of a girl gaining the upper hand in the aftermath of a bad relationship.Īnd yet – days later – I find the repeating fragment less satisfying and more irritating.
I woke up with the tune playing in my head. With images of Lily Allen’s Las Vegas wedding to ’Stranger Things’ star David Harbour filling my social media feed, I immediately found myself humming the opening bars of ’Smile’ from her 2007 album Alright, Still.ĭespite not really listening to the song during the past 10 years, I found myself singing the lyrics under my breath throughout the days that followed.
