Are Poets and Writers More Susceptible to Earworms?
An annoying trick of the creative mind
If you are unfamiliar with the term “earworm” I can just about guarantee that you have had one before. It’s a nasty term for a nasty situation. When the “Farmer’s Only” jingle first appeared across the nation, singing the delightfully annoying tune in hopes that farmers could use the service and find their fated loves — I thought I’d lose my ever-living mind with that earworm.
Definition of Earworm
Although the term earworm refers specifically to music, I’d broaden the term to include phrases or rhymes that repeat. Sometimes for me, it is a phrase that comes to me for a poem, but one that sucks and I’d never use — but it plays on repeat until Train’s “Meet Virginia” starts all over again.
Involuntary musical imagery (INMI or “earworms”) — the spontaneous recall and repeating of a tune in one’s mind — can be attributed to a wide range of triggers, including memory associations and recent musical exposure. — Kelly Jakubowski, Dissecting an Earworm
