My knowledge of music stopped 17 years ago when I became completely deaf. I don’t know any new songs after 2007 and before going deaf I wasn’t someone who listened to music all day long.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s I listened to a lot of radio. The radio was always on in the car, in shops, almost everywhere. I saw the occasional MTV when it was still just a music video channel. Back then I saw a lot less TV. It was still the decade of reading books, and teen magazines, playing sports, doing homework, and being outside. Eventually, I developed an eclectic taste of music that was all over the place. I like some genres more than the other, but I like a bit of almost everything.

Since losing my hearing, regularly a feeling or a word will trigger a song in my head. It’s like it’s actually playing but just the refrain or some parts of the songs. And it’s all in my head. Over and over again.

The past 17 years it happened a couple of times that I would wake up in the morning with a song in my head that I don’t know and I can’t figure out what song it is.

This will drive me nuts for hours until suddenly the song is just gone from my mind and I can’t recall it. When these “unknown” songs start playing in my head I will look up the few words I can make out and eventually figure out which song it is.

“Fundamentally, an earworm is your brain singing”

Why do songs get stuck in our heads?

This is how I found out for example that thanks to the radio I know ‘One of Us’ by Joan Osborne even tho I never knew about it, and didn’t have it on cassette or CD. I was blown away to recall a song I can’t even remember ever having actively listened to.

Latin ballads tend to be more difficult to figure out. If you are familiar with the genre you would know — Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin are just the tiny tip of the mountain. They are known because they went international, but there are many similar singers who only focus on the Spanish-speaking market.

The madness of it

A couple of years ago a Latin ballad started playing in my head and I could not figure it out. Then just like that, the song disappeared again. I couldn’t recall it at all. It’s a double-edged sword. When it’s in my head, it drives me nuts and when it’s gone and I can’t recall it at all, also drives me nuts.

Until one Monday morning September 2th 2024. I was happy to wake up to it again. I even wrote down the sentences and words that keep repeating, to not forget at least those.

I spent all the way to work while on the train, looking up lyrics trying to figure out which song it was and nothing. Because the song is really loud in my head I start unconsciously singing it in a whisper too. I hope people think I have AirPods on or something and don’t realize I’m walking around whisper-singing without any headphones on.

Eventually, later in the day, it went away.

Trying to fall asleep at 22:00 it started again and this time persistence paid off. I found the song!

Such a relief! My mind will probably mute the song again and I won’t be able to recall it on command but at least now I know what song it is. (Update: since writing this I can still recall the song.)

Another detail, once in a blue moon there are songs playing in my dream and they are so real, it’s like I was never deaf. I’ll wake up happy and two seconds later remember I’m deaf and the happiness of “listening” to a song fades.

Where is the science?

I never found an explanation for why the late deaf brain or my brain does this. The fact that songs I don’t remember knowing and they start playing in my head. Not that I’m complaining either, but it’s remarkable how I can remember songs as if I listened to them yesterday for the last and not more than 17 years ago.

The article I cited the quote from and other articles mention that earworms are more common in people who experience neuroticism and non-clinical levels of obsessive compulsion. I’m pretty sure I experienced neither of those. In so far I found no articles about the connection between late deafness and earworms. Being late deaf also, none of the tricks to get rid of an earworm work for me because you need to be able to hear.

When I don’t have a song playing in my head, it’s taken over by tinnitus. Which is a whole different beast that I have to live with.

One of the many things of being late deaf.