A musician buddy told me it’s because your mind craves the pattern and to see the song through to the end to find out how the tonics and keys play out. Also, modern pop songs are designed to be catchy. It’s not common to be able to hear music in your head, just like some people can’t visualize. So be happy you got a talent most don’t have.

Thinking of these two ideas really mellowed songs playing in my head.

> It’s not common to be able to hear music in your head

I did not know this, do you have any sources for somewhere to read about it? Not that I don't believe you, I'm just curious about just how unlikely it is to be able to do that.

In music we call the above ability "audiation", and people who can't audiate are often not good at improvisation. It's more intuitive for people who can audiate, and more systematic for people who can't (ie instead of imagining new music, they are generating it from rules).

I can recall and recite full pieces that I've only heard one or two times. I really struggle with remembering lyrics, but I will remember the full suite of instruments and what they played. I can also synthesize/imagine new songs in my head with those same instruments and voices, with totally new melodies and chords, I can do that for voices to. I can make anyone say anything in my head.

I figured everyone could do some variant of that. Though remembering every note is probably a bit extra-curricular I wouldn't have expected it to be that unique.

It's also possible that I don't remember as perfectly as I think I do, but because I can synthesize so well and have a fairly large musical exposure, I fill in the background instruments closely enough that it's the same vibe.

I don’t have any hard data to point you towards but quite a few people self report that they cannot visualize images at all. Most people do but like all things related to the mind there is a spectrum where in the extreme you can find people who can fly by a city in a helicopter once who can reproduce the cityscape, remember the correct silhouettes of hundreds of buildings, with pencils or ink with extreme accuracy.

It’s not a stretch to suppose a similar spectrum exists with audiation (didn’t know this word before BTW!) in the general public with most people can more or less hear some sound in their mind but having multiple channels of music playing in time.. probably not most. I suppose people who get songs stuck in their heads are more able than most in that regard for sure.

the concept of audiation is interesting, I will explore further

thank you for sharing your experience. I too find it hard to memorise lyrics, but can sometimes have a full orchestra playing in time and in tune

I wonder if this audiation is a redirection for anxiety or depression, i.e. my brain's attempt at avoiding insanity

“my brain's attempt at avoiding insanity”

Don’t overthink it. Some people have a stronger ability than others to synthesize sensory data. It’s more related to lucid dreaming, not insanity.

thank you for your response

I've noticed that whenever I find a bit music particularly enjoyable on the first listen, my enjoyment at listening to it declines sharply within a couple days and will never again as high. I guess it's like the idea of ruining a song for yourself by playing it too many times in rapid succession, but with this I find that regardless of whether I play the track only once or on repeat for hours (I've tried), every listen on that day is equally enjoyable, but a night or two of sleep and it loses its magic.

Perhaps this is actually a more general phenomenon—you often hear people wishing they could experience some song/show/book/film 'for the first time again'. Regardless, it seems to fall into a category of topics about memory I see discussed frequently online: maybe there's some book out there with a grand theory relating the enjoyability of music to the brain's constant search for novel things to pattern match on, and how boredom evolved to spur on everything that we do. It'd probably also incorporate spaced repetition and the role of sleep in learning—wasn't there recently an HN thread about unexpectedly good performance when coming back to a skill that's languished for some time, and how you can temporarily perform worse during nonstop practice?

PROTIP: If you open a song in Audacity and tweak it slightly (I usually slow it down by 5%), you can trick your brain into processing it as a "new" song again. The returns are still diminishing, but I find I can eke a few more days out of a good song this way.

Another trick is to listen to your favorite songs at a very low volume -- loud enough so you can still hear them, but quiet enough so that you can't quite make out the lyrics or the melody. After a while of this kind of listening, your mind will fill in the gaps in a creative way.

This is great for getting inspiration for music making, as what you hear will have a strong resemblance to what you already like, but will be different in subtle and interesting ways.

This likely won’t help you, but I found that I can use the Star Wars Cantina Band piece, which used to be an earworm for me many years ago, to “cleanse” my mind from a new earworm. That is, whenever I have an annoying earworm, I can kill it by playing Cantina Band in my mind.

thanks for the suggestion, I will check them out

I have wondered if using different music to drown it out would work, like tinnitus sufferers do

Huh that happens to me too, tooth grinding and all. I never thought it might not be normal. In periods it's so bad I have to completely avoid music or I won't be able to sleep. I'll just lie in bed jamming for hours. It's incredibly annoying, and a bit scary to observe my mind going in circles like that.

It's definitely stress/anxiety related for me, or at least coincident.

I don't play an instrument, do you? Maybe it could "get it out of the system" somehow?

it's slightly relieving to hear you experience similar and find it normal

yes to it getting in the way of sleep and yes to probably anxiety related

I used to listen to a lot of music and play a few instruments as a hobby, but have had no time to in recent years. I consider myself an incredibly musical person and wonder if recording the main offenders would expel them. I would love to find the time to turn this affliction into a creative process, both as a hobby and possible therapy

I've found that when the constant music starts to get grating, that feeling of annoyance is actually just the onset of a headache disguising itself differently.