At 12:15 am this morning, I was at my computer typing, “How to get rid of a musical earworm,” and I found the following answers:
1. Chewing gum could be good way to get rid of earworms.
2. Engage with the song: Many people report that actually listening to the earworm song all the way through can help to eliminate having it stuck on a loop. Listening to the song stuck in your head may bring closure and may help extract it.
3. Having a conversation, listening to talk radio or listening to another song may help get an earworm out of your head. Distract yourself by thinking of or listening to a different song. The top named “cure song” for displacing earworms is “God Save the Queen.”
4. Completing a sudoku puzzle.
5. Let it be: Others find that the best way to get rid of an earworm is to just try not to think about it and let it fade away naturally on its own.
Last night I went to Jeremy Wong and Elizabeth Eschen‘s “Ruminations on Love and Compassion” recital at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu (Liz is a Boston-based voice teacher). The program paired songs by Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, as well as Hawaii-based composers John Starr Alexander, Thomas Goedecke, and John McCreary.
I was happy to see John Alexander in the audience, my former colleague from Iolani School. What I didn’t know, though, was that Jeremy had programmed John’s “The softness of my mother’s hands,” a piece he wrote for SSA or SATB chorus, which John had programmed every year since its publication in 2004. The piece was commissioned by Iris Lamanna in memory of her mother, Billie Godley, whom I believe John said was a former piano teacher.
Of course, in my twenty years at Iolani School, I turned pages umpteen times on this piece for John as he accompanied the chorus, and in the course of so many repetitions, got to know this piece very well, even though all I did was turn pages.
The words and music were written by John:
When I was very small, just a stranger to the world, I prayed God would hold me safely, For around me danger swirled. I’d stumble and I’d fall, lose direction, suffer pain. But He’d always hear my prayers, I knew, for I’d reach home again. (Refrain) If I live to be one hundred, sail to countless far-off lands, I shall ne’er forget how my prayers were met in the softness of my mother’s hands. All my troubles healed, all my hopes are sealed, cares and spirits stilled by the softness of my mother’s hands.
A little touch would do, nothing more than just a pat, brush a wayward tear from off my cheek, She’d smile and that was that, But now the world has changed, and so often skies are gray, but within my heart her touch will live to brighten ev’ry day. (Repeat refrain)
It was this piece which was stuck in my head from the time I went to bed, around 10:30 pm, to about 1:00 am when I think I finally fell asleep. In looking at the suggestions about getting rid of an earworm, I first looked to YouTube for performances of the piece and found this one recorded in 2018 of the Western American Choral Directors Association Youth Treble Honor Choir, conducted by Janet Napoles.
https://youtu.be/nty0PfwYobw
I also found this hilarious rendition in which the children were awfully wiggly, girls swishing their dresses, and boys turning around! It is from the Spectrum Choral Academy 50th Annual Spring Concert Combined Choirs. The Academy is a 50-voice community choir program for children in Gig Harbor, WA.
But did it get rid of the melody in my head? No way.
I tried thinking of “God Save the Queen,” also to no avail—the earworm still kept me awake. I thought I was too tired to work a sudoku puzzle, and out of desperation, I pretended to chew gum! Since I never buy gum nor chew it either, I had to pretend I was chewing it—and it did distract me enough to finally fall asleep. However, I was awakened by my phone ringing in the middle of a dream about losing my passport!
That’s what this piece did to me! It took imaginary chewing gum to finally get rid of the earworm stuck in my head.
Oh, by the way, Jeremy Wong and Elizabeth Eschen’s concert was very pleasant, indeed. And they had a brilliant way to save on the program printing cost: they just printed QR codes on the single sheet of paper, so that people could pull up the texts, translations and artist bios online. Trouble is, I forgot my phone at home!
