July blogathon # 13: Earwormery
You know the tunes that won't leave your head? The persistent earworms? The ones that just SIT there, and the moment you think you've banished them and are thinking of something else, back they come, bigger and better than ever...
There are going to be videos galore here, so it's going to go under a series of cuts for those who don't want to scroll down endlessly...
The soundtracks. The soundtracks of our lives. Where were you when you first heard these themes? How old were you? I bet you remember.
How about a piece of music that might have been written particularly for this movie? It doesn't matter that "Also Sprach Zarathustra" had been around the block a few times before this particular outing - but I challenge anyone who's lived past the arrival of "2001:A Space Odyssey" to think of this piece of music without seeing the black obelisk in the back of their mind...
And then there's... um... well, this is the mother of all movie earworms, isn't it...
The next three have something in common - John Williams. He seemed to have a particular genius for Hittng. Exactly. The. Right. Kind. Of Mood.
I remember going into the cinema the first time I saw the ORIGINAL Star Wars movie. I remember it. VIVIDLY. To this day, i can't quite hear the intro to 20th Century Fox movies without hearing THIS coming at its heels:
And then there's the Classic Adventure edition - hear this and you're off with Doctor Jones into places unknown where anything can happen, usually DOES, and X always ALWAYS marks the spot:
And then this, perhaps the greatest feel-good movie of all time:
And speaking of iconic, especially in the last few years, who doesn't know where THIS comes from:
It was coffeeem who originally put this one into my head - and it hasn't left it since. I offer it to you now - please, take it! (And see if YOU can forget it in a hurry!)
And whenever I get the cows stuck in my brain, my darling husband tries to cure me with this:
In theory that's the greatest earworm of all time, but somehow the cows win every time....
The other cure-all (in other words, a potent earworm to cure a potent earworm) is THIS particular classic:
And now have fun trying to get THAT one rinsed out of your brain.
Here, I'll try - this may not work for most of you because it is an unfamiliar song but I first heard it many years ago and I have NEVER forgotten it and it still pops up every so often:
And then there's the ones you kind of welcome in.
No further words of explanation are necessary for something like the next two tunes.
So what is it about a piece of music that qualifies it as "eternal", something that sticks inside of you and never quite leaves you if you've heard it ONCE...?
Many of these are helped along by the fact that they are attached to immensely popular franchises - Doctor Who, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, that sort of thing. And for those particular tunes, the simple fact that they evoke that franchise might have been more than enough. But as for the rest of them... I'll give you one guess. Simplicity.
The tunes are easy. They're memorable. They're frequently a repeated motif. They come in and they curl into your ear and they start looping, picking up at the beginning again once you've come to an end, on and and on and on. And because there's nothing difficult to remember, nothing complicated to have to keep in mind, they're just... there. Permanently. Etched in. I might have cured you of any PARTICULAR kind of earworm simply by throwing this many at you at once, but give yourself a moment or two with any ONE of them without listening to the others and you'll be off and running.
Don't come whining back at me [grin].
Happy singalongs.
There are going to be videos galore here, so it's going to go under a series of cuts for those who don't want to scroll down endlessly...
The soundtracks. The soundtracks of our lives. Where were you when you first heard these themes? How old were you? I bet you remember.
How about a piece of music that might have been written particularly for this movie? It doesn't matter that "Also Sprach Zarathustra" had been around the block a few times before this particular outing - but I challenge anyone who's lived past the arrival of "2001:A Space Odyssey" to think of this piece of music without seeing the black obelisk in the back of their mind...
Click to viewAnd then there's... um... well, this is the mother of all movie earworms, isn't it...
The next three have something in common - John Williams. He seemed to have a particular genius for Hittng. Exactly. The. Right. Kind. Of Mood.
I remember going into the cinema the first time I saw the ORIGINAL Star Wars movie. I remember it. VIVIDLY. To this day, i can't quite hear the intro to 20th Century Fox movies without hearing THIS coming at its heels:
And then there's the Classic Adventure edition - hear this and you're off with Doctor Jones into places unknown where anything can happen, usually DOES, and X always ALWAYS marks the spot:
And then this, perhaps the greatest feel-good movie of all time:
And speaking of iconic, especially in the last few years, who doesn't know where THIS comes from:
It was coffeeem who originally put this one into my head - and it hasn't left it since. I offer it to you now - please, take it! (And see if YOU can forget it in a hurry!)
And whenever I get the cows stuck in my brain, my darling husband tries to cure me with this:
In theory that's the greatest earworm of all time, but somehow the cows win every time....
The other cure-all (in other words, a potent earworm to cure a potent earworm) is THIS particular classic:
And now have fun trying to get THAT one rinsed out of your brain.
Here, I'll try - this may not work for most of you because it is an unfamiliar song but I first heard it many years ago and I have NEVER forgotten it and it still pops up every so often:
And then there's the ones you kind of welcome in.
No further words of explanation are necessary for something like the next two tunes.
So what is it about a piece of music that qualifies it as "eternal", something that sticks inside of you and never quite leaves you if you've heard it ONCE...?
Many of these are helped along by the fact that they are attached to immensely popular franchises - Doctor Who, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, that sort of thing. And for those particular tunes, the simple fact that they evoke that franchise might have been more than enough. But as for the rest of them... I'll give you one guess. Simplicity.
The tunes are easy. They're memorable. They're frequently a repeated motif. They come in and they curl into your ear and they start looping, picking up at the beginning again once you've come to an end, on and and on and on. And because there's nothing difficult to remember, nothing complicated to have to keep in mind, they're just... there. Permanently. Etched in. I might have cured you of any PARTICULAR kind of earworm simply by throwing this many at you at once, but give yourself a moment or two with any ONE of them without listening to the others and you'll be off and running.
Don't come whining back at me [grin].
Happy singalongs.