Please note: AI slop is in royal blue. The rest is original slop.

An “earworm,” or Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI), is a song snippet that plays on a loop in your head, often triggered by stress, fatigue, or hearing a familiar tune.

For mine, I blame Alysa Liu. To cap off her win of the Women’s Singles Olympic Gold Medal in Figure Skating, the 20-year-old wowed the crowd in Milan, skating her long program to Donna Summer’s rendition of MacArthur Park. It’s been stuck in my head since, and the performance was on February 19th. I do hope you got to see Ms. Liu’s performance. She killed it, and in case you can’t read lips, that’s what the fuck she was talking about.

For the record, what’s on loop in my head is the Richard Harris version from 1968. That’s when the earworm was first embedded. It’s been lying in wait since. I host many dormant earworms from those days. My mom always had WRKO-AM playing Top 40 in the house, and it was the soundtrack to long summer days at Revere Beach in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

While cooking on a random night this week, the earworm took over my body, and I involuntarily belted out a bit of the chorus like a person with Tourette’s syndrome, then turned to my wife sitting at the island behind me and blurted, ‘Who left the cake out in the rain? Isn’t “someone” a little vague?’ She shook her head at my INMI-induced tic. “It’s just a metaphor.” She went back to her crocheting, but only after correcting my lyrical misinterpretation. “And it’s sweet green icing, not sweet cream icing.”

“Whatever. It’s cream to me.”

To stop them, try chewing gum, listening to the full song, or distraction.

When to Seek Help
While typically harmless, if the music is exceptionally persistent, distressing, and interferes with daily life, it could be associated with OCD or require consultation with a mental health professional.

I don’t (yet) need help from a mental health professional for this particular bout of earwormitis, but it was written by American songwriter, composer, and singer Jimmy Webb. <- Seriously, check him out. He composed many an earworm. In 1967, Webb wrote “MacArthur Park”; the inspiration for the song was his relationship and breakup with Susie Horton. The breakup was also the primary influence for his 1965 composition “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”.

Speaking of Phoenix, Beth and I will celebrate our first post-retirement vacation starting there, starting soon. My girl has never seen the Grand Canyon, been to Sedona, or experienced the sets of my many University of Arizona yarns. Like that time we drove from Tucson to Boulder, Colorado, to see the Stones… I mean, she’s listening while she crochets, right?