[neilep (OP)]

"We're The Kids In America..whoo oahh oh "

sang UK singer Kim Wilde in 1981 !!

Now why...for no such reason that I can fathom did this start repeating in my head a few days ago !!?....I can not recall any reference to it what so ever in the few days before hand !...was I the victim of subliminal tampering ?...at 11:30 at night in my garden ?


The real question really is....why does this happen ?...why do we all of a sudden seem to involuntarily start to experience a revival of songs, words, pictures etc etc in our minds ?

Cos I don't know....do you ?

[Karen W.]

New word for me!"Incongruous " Whats it mean???

[neilep (OP)]

New word for me!"Incongruous " Whats it mean???

Dictionary.com

1.   out of keeping or place; inappropriate; unbecoming: an incongruous effect; incongruous behavior.
2.   not harmonious in character; inconsonant; lacking harmony of parts: an incongruous mixture of architectural styles.
3.   inconsistent: actions that were incongruous with their professed principles

I meant that the song was completely out of context as it just popped into my head !!

[Carolyn]

And after explaining why this happens, could someone explain how to get it out of our heads.

I've had "Come and listen  to a story 'bout a man named Jed, a poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed.  Then one day he was shootin' at some food and up through the ground came a bubbalin crude......." stuck in my head for days.  It's really starting to annoy me.

[Karen W.]

I love that ONE! lol!!

[Karen W.]

New word for me!"Incongruous " Whats it mean???

Dictionary.com

1.   out of keeping or place; inappropriate; unbecoming: an incongruous effect; incongruous behavior.
2.   not harmonious in character; inconsonant; lacking harmony of parts: an incongruous mixture of architectural styles.
3.   inconsistent: actions that were incongruous with their professed principles

I meant that the song was completely out of context as it just popped into my head !!

Thanks Neily! I think afte that number two rings a bell.. Thanks Mr. dictionary!

[paul.fr]

have you been neglecting your podcasts?

Don’t you just hate it when you get an annoying song stuck in your head and you can’t stop humming it all day? Researchers in America think this happens because these repetitive, catchy songs give us a brain itch, which can only be cured by a cognitive scratch… otherwise known as listening to the offending tune over and over again. Prof James Kellaris from the University of Cincinnati has been studying these songs that he calls earworms, and has discovered that nearly everyone suffers from them at some time and that in general women are more susceptible to them than men, as are musicians. He’s also shown that there is no guaranteed way of ever getting the song out of your head, especially if you try a replacement strategy by thinking of a different tune, because more likely than not if you’ll replace one earworm for another! So, will this research lead to the pop industry releasing songs to deliberately plague us with hard-to-shift purpose-built earworms? (…some of you might say they already do that very well!) Well, maybe not. Prof Kellaris hasn’t found a winning formula for an effective earworm since people react differently to different tunes. We do know that one of the key elements of an earworm is repetition, since a tune with a lot of variation isn’t easily taken in.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/569/

[Karen W.]

That is interesting am I understanding that the cure is to repeatidly listen to it some more?

[neilep (OP)]

...but I want to know WHY it pops into your head in the first place !!

[RD]

The connection could be that Kim Wilde now presents TV shows on gardening
and you were in your garden when her catchy pop-tune popped back into your consciousness.
http://www.kimwildegardens.com/media/

[neilep (OP)]

The connection could be that Kim Wilde now presents TV shows on gardening
and you were in your garden when her catchy pop-tune popped back into your consciousness.
http://www.kimwildegardens.com/media/

This is an EXCELLENT point and cleverly arrived at... except for the fact that I never knew she presented gardening shows...

....though...I am aware that there must have been some sort of stimuli to bring it on !!....I was also in the garden at night and it was pitch black !!

.......but doesn't this spontaneous thing happen to everyone too ?

[Karen W.]

Yes I think it does...Certain songs words always make me thing of people places etc.. I think it is normal.. Just thought and word association!

[paul.fr]

Whilst it does not directly answer your question, it does shed some light on music and the brain.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200711094