My hmphs

I’m at my in-laws’ house today, where for some reason the DSL is acting like the old Hayes 2400 baud modem that I used to connect to AOL in the Dark Ages of the Internet. I first discovered teh Internets in 1994. Confused by all the hyperlinks that made up the World Wide Web (how can you find anything by clicking on a link?), I opted instead for now-outdated tools such as Gopher, WAIS and Archie. 

Using the Internet back then was like finding one’s way in a dark closet; you had no idea what was out there, sometimes you hit a wall, and other times you’d bump into stuff that would lead you to something useful. In 1994, I was smack in the middle of my Innocence Mission obsession, and since the group wasn’t gracing the cover of Rolling Stone weekly, I needed more information about them. 

I signed up for a Delphi account (anybody remember them?), which was totally text-based but seemed to offer the broadest range of services. (Even then, AOL, better known then as America Online, was looked down upon as a service for “newbies”.) I then began my quest.

It wasn’t easy. I ran into a lot of virtual brick walls; back then, Internet hosts weren’t always online, and I’d find something in a search result, only to be greeted with the 1994 equivalent of a 404 error. I learned basic Unix commands, sometimes having to learn a command to access an online Unix manual that would give me more commands. But one day, I hit the mother load: an archive of e-mails from a listserv completely dedicated to the Innocence Mission.

There were others like me. I was able to follow discussions, find similar fanatics, and learn more about the band. But best of all, I found lyrics to dozens of unreleased songs - songs that I had never heard, never knew existed. It was like discovering that a treasure existed, but not being able to get your hands on it.

No problem. With a handful of e-mail addresses harvested from the archives, I sent a few messages, joined the list, and got the list admin, then Keith Abbott, to send me cassettes of these unreleased songs that had been recorded at concerts. Most were audience recordings - muffled and garbled - but it didn’t matter. And there were a few radio recordings and demos of absolutely heavenly songs that rivaled most everything on their first two albums.

I then knew that the Internet was a powerful thing. Fourteen years later, I’m writing about music, watching my blog grow and reaching out to people worldwide. Today, I only wish my connection speed were better than it was back then.

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We’ve all had it happen: One song finds its way into your brain, and try as you might, you can’t make it go away. Oliver Sacks calls the tunes “earworms,” and they have been known to stick in people’s minds continuously for weeks at a time before finally dying out.

They can be maddening. I can still remember several earworms dating back to my childhood:

• At the age of 11, Cheap Trick’s “The Dream Police” kept me up for several nights with the same ironic line repeating over and over: “The dream police, they live inside of my head…” I have avoided it ever since for fear that the worm would work its way back in to my brain. Sacks says this is normal; after an episode, there is a heightened sensitivity to that song, so that even years later, a reference to the song or a snippet played on the radio can retrigger the earworm.
• Even more ironic, ELO’s “Can’t Get It Out of My Head” could not get out of my head one day, the first line of the chorus replaying itself until I thought I would scream.
• About 10 years ago, The Push Stars’ “Wild Irish Rose” played over and over in my head after I listened to it on a plane trip to Portland, Ore. I still can’t listen to it.
• Just this morning, I woke up with the chorus to Whodini’s “The Freaks Come Out At Night” (Yes! A rap song!) in my head. Why? I have no clue. I can honestly say I haven’t heard that song in 25 years.

Even Neil Diamond is susceptible, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “If I wasn’t in the business of songwriting, I’d probably be seeing a doctor,” he said. “I’ve tried everything from cold showers to listening to other people’s music, but nothing helps.”

Many times, just a snippet of a song will get stuck in my head, and it closes itself into a loop, trying to find a way out. Frustrated, I sometimes have to play the whole song in my head to show the earworm how to get out of the loop. (It reminds me of a M*A*S*H* episode in which Father Mulcahy is playing a song on the piano. When someone asks him what it is, he says, “I’m not sure, but whatever it is I can’t seem to find the end. I’ve been playing the same thing for 20 minutes.”)

Sacks attributes this phenomena, which counts even Mark Twain as a victim, to two causes:

1. Western music’s emphasis on patterns - verse, verse, chorus, phrases repeated over and over - are meant to be consumed and to stick with you. This “stickiness” can separate a hit from the thousands of songs that are released each year. Unfortunately, it can stick too much.
2. Music is ubiquitous nowadays, making the problem worse. With the iPod, we can take our music anywhere, and with hundreds of songs pounding our heads daily, the brain can only take so much. Maybe it saves some to work out later.

Dr. James Kellaris of the University of Cincinnati has an even more intriguing theory: Certain properties of music may be like histamines, which cause in itch on the skin. Exposure to such music may cause a sort of “cognitive itch” in one’s mind. “The only way to scratch a cognitive itch is to repeat the offending music mentally,” according to his web site. “But this only exacerbates the itch, trapping the hapless victim in an involuntary cycle of repeated itching and scratching.”

I think there’s also a heightened tendency among music lovers to have this happen. We tend to listen to more music and probably process it more than most, noting patterns, phrases and chord progressions, and it sticks with us. I think I have tunes going through my head most of the day, but most of the time they are too unobtrusive for me to even notice. If I stop and try to figure out what it is, it will go away, only to be replaced a few minutes later.

What helps? One respondent to Kellaris’ survey argued against trying to fight it - “It only makes it angrier!” But Kellaris found that nearly two-thirds of sufferers try to use another tune to dislodge the one that’s stuck. Others try to distract themselves, and some try to share the earworm with others in the hopes that it will pass from their head to another’s.

Somehow, though, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go up to someone and start singing “The Freaks Come Out At Night.” I’d even get strange looks from my wife.

Dr. James Kellaris’ Earworm Research Site - complete with FAQs, earworm myths, top 10 earworms and even a “virtual clinic” for ridding oneself of the pests

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Courtesy of Maybe We Ain’t That Young Anymore, I’ve discovered a new blog from The New York Times called Measure for Measure. The blog, which is about the art of songwriting, immediately spoke to me, for it validates exactly what I’m trying to do on this blog. Songs “are created by artists who draw on some combination of craft, skill and inspiration,” according to the blog, and guest bloggers such as Roseanne Cash and Andrew Bird are encouraged to reveal their secrets.

A guest post by Suzanne Vega (one of my faves) really hit me:

…I would string together a few chords that worked with whatever the idea at hand was, or whatever the mood of the day was. And then repeat them. The chords made a safe home for the melody, a bed for the melody to lie down on, sort of. So you had to shape the melody to the chords in some cool way. The idea that a melody could be its own clear idea didn’t really occur to me until much later…

It occurs to me that a melody is as precise and inviolate as a skeleton. You can vary it a little, but not much, really, if you want it to be recognizable.

At its most basic form, songs consist of melody; it’s the most recognizable aspect of a song. Toddlers know nothing of harmonies, augmented chords or aeolian cadences. But they can sing “Twinkle, Twinkle” or “Old MacDonald” spot-on. I play “God Only Knows” for my kids and sing harmonies to whatever song is playing, in the hopes that the light will turn on for them and they can recognize music at a new level. That will come.

People ask me why I have such a problem with hip-hop. Yes, it’s sometimes misogynistic, and the lyrics speak often of sex or violence. But the bottom line: There is no melody. Sure, most have some type of backing track - usually a sample from an older song - but it’s performance art, spoken poetry - not music.

I also love Suzanne Vega’s idea that chords provide a “bed for the melody to lie down on.” A melody can change so much based on what chords are accompanying it. Melody by itself can be limiting; but by varying the tempo, changing chords at various time, your options are limitless. It’s how those pieces are put together that separate good songs from masterpieces. I’ve always been fascinated by how that is created - what elements that, when put together, can make grown men cry and send millions to record stores to buy a record.

It’s truly magic.

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