OH MY GOD! Intoxicating earworms and the seduction of music

 “OMG” by José Iglesias is one of my current earworms (you know, those songs that annoyingly get stuck in one’s head). Released in June, the song quickly hit the top of the Latin pop charts. For those of you who follow baseball, yes, I mean that José Iglesias. Exuberant and joyful, “OMG” has become the song of the summer for Mets fans like me. I don’t understand most of the lyrics (aside from the few English words, including the refrain, “Oh My God”), but I found the Spanish lyrics online and used Google to translate. Iglesias has been killing it on the field with amazing slugging and stellar defense – as of July 15th he had an OPS of .999 in 79 at bats – and now he’s a Latin pop star! He was even invited to sing at MLB’s Home Run Derby this year.

An earworm can be anything from a catchy pop tune to a rousing patriotic march to a serene and ethereal aria. If there are lyrics, it doesn’t matter whether it’s sung in a language I understand. I’ve studied French, Italian and German, and can understand a little bit of Spanish (similar enough to Italian), as well as some Yiddish and Dutch (both Germanic languages). But Helmut Lotti’s interpretation of the Russian National Anthem, and Shai Abramson’s rendition of “Eretz Tzvi” (in Hebrew) – sung in languages I don’t understand, whether written or auditory – fill me with delight at the musicality and passion with which they are performed by these extraordinary vocalists. The mood of the melody can range from the sublime – “Ombra mai fu” from Handel’s Serses – to the ridiculous – Snollebollekes’ “Links Rechts” (especially as danced to by the Orange Army in the streets of Berlin).

 

I cannot quite fathom the persistence of earworms in the brain – what they signify, what purpose they serve, or how to get rid of them. Mine play in my head like a mixtape on a loop, hopping from one song or orchestral piece to another, with seemingly little control from my conscious mind. Usually the only effective way to evict an earworm is to replace it with another. Then to YouTube I go, searching for a mesmerizing tune to kick out the old song and replace it with a new one, which will then play until my neurological needle spontaneously shifts to another melody, and then back again. As I am composing this blogpost right now, Cecilia Bartoli’s rendition of “Ombra mai fu” (see above) continues to play in my brain. If the largo of that aria becomes too sedating, I can up the ante (and the tempo) by switching to something jazzier, like “Daydream Believer” by the Monkeys or Paul Russell’s “Lil Boo Thang.” And though I’m neither British nor religious, mentally playing a patriotic hymn like “Jerusalem” or “I Vow to Thee, My Country” (particularly as intoned by Ramin Karimloo) is a sure way to elevate the mood.

 

I’ve previously written several posts about music, both here and on my other blog, “World War II…with a German accent.” For reasons I don’t fully comprehend, there is nearly always a soundtrack playing in my head, like some sort of cerebral tinnitus. It seems to have a mind of its own, so I think it’s best that I learn to live with it, and enjoy humming along.