Hell's Soundtrack
and what it tells us about our brains
If hell had a soundtrack, what would it sound like? If Lucifer ever tapped me for some audio branding advice for the underworld, I've got an idea. Picture this: Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, on an eternal loop. Don't get me wrong—I am a big fan and I adore this song (or, should I say, I used to adore it). Just last week, I was on my way home and heard a street musician's rendition that I found quite captivating. My wife, however, wasn't a fan, so we carried on without lingering. Once home, I wasted no time figuring out the chords and strumming the tune on my guitar. My dog seemed to enjoy my performance, but my wife, not so much. Eventually, she asked me to wrap it up, so I did. Case closed, or so I thought.
Then came the next day, and with it, an involuntary Hallelujah chorus in my head. This became problematic as I sat down to meditate. In meditation, fighting off any thoughts is a cardinal sin. So I mentally invited Leonard Cohen for a nice cup of tea, hoping he'd just chill (and hopefully shut up) while I would attend to the important task of focusing on my breath. No such luck. Try as I might to push the tune out of my mind, it only seemed to gain energy, morphing from a cute, harmless earworm into a relentless monster constantly gnawing at my sanity.
Desperate for a solution, I turned to Google and stumbled upon this gem: How do you get rid of an earworm?. (Kudos to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; if I had the authority, I'd increase your budget.) The article suggested listening to the song from beginning to end. That didn't work for me, but playing it on my guitar finally did the trick. Now, obviously I wanted to know: why did this work?
The answer may lie in the Zeigarnik effect, named after the female Lithuanian-Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik (an interesting character in her own right). She observed that waiters easily remembered long orders – but only for as long as it was necessary to complete the task. After serving the meal, the information was immediately forgotten. The theory suggests that an earworm plagues us when we're interrupted while listening to a song, causing our brain to "complete" the tune. My personal experience aligns neatly with this, and I'm committed to giving that busker a full listen next time.
Unfortunately, as much as this theory feels right, multiple researchers testing it found no empirical evidence to support it in the case of earworms, as I learned from Claire Arthur's recent review article, Why do Songs get “Stuck in our Heads”? Towards a Theory for Explaining Earworms. The paper, by the way, seems like a great place to start if you are interested in Involuntary music imagery (which is the scientific lingo for earworms, and what you would input to Google Scholar). As it stands, science doesn't yet have a solid theory of earworms occur, but let's not lose hope. Researchers like Dr. Kelly Jakubowski are actively working on the topic.
Returning to the subject of meditation, lay Buddhists typically adhere to the Five Precepts as a baseline for ethical conduct. However, there's an advanced version known as the Eight Precepts, which offer laypeople a glimpse into monastic life. These are usually observed on special religious holidays or when spending time at a temple, such as during a meditation retreat. One element that has always puzzled me about the Eight Precepts is the injunction against listening to music. My recent encounter with the tenacious earworm suggests that this rule may be more practical than it initially appears. I am not a Buddhist, but as a precaution, I plan to stick to stuff like avant-garde classical music for the next few days—better safe than sorry!
(It would make all the sense in the world to include a link to Leonard Cohen performing Hallelujah in this email. But I just didn’t dare – in case there would be autoplay.)