For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.
You know that feeling when you just can't get a song out of your head,
just a short part of it playing over and over?
Right now,
my brain is chewing on the Muppet show theme
because I just watched a livestream charity event where a bunch of my favorite comedians,
including some from Dropout, which longtime listeners know I'm a huge fan of,
did a onstage reading of the Muppet Show.
So right now, it's just, you know, it's time to play the music.
It's time to light the lights over and over again.
So thanks for that, folks.
A lot of people call those annoying little ditties earworms,
fragments of songs that crawl into your mind and just don't want to leave.
And scientists have actually done quite a bit of research to figure out why some tunes wriggle their way into our heads better than others.
You've probably dealt with your own share of earworms.
In fact, in a few previous episodes,
I asked all of you to send in some of your favorite or most infuriating examples,
and a whole bunch of you were kind enough to sing into your phones for us.
Here's Carrie from New Orleans.
I have had this earworm in my head for literally at least 20 years before I go to bed at night.