Earworm

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a melody — four notes, absurdly catchy, played on celeste)
(it repeats. And repeats. The earworm is the intro.)
(pizzicato joins, the melody now in two voices, multiplying)

[Verse 1]
(PLAIN + NEURO)
There's a melody in my auditory cortex
That I didn't put there
And I don't know who did
And it's been playing since Tuesday
On a loop made of phonological glue
And the glue was manufactured
By a region of the brain
That has never once
Responded to a formal complaint

The involuntary musical imagery —
That's the name the journals gave it —
Affects ninety-eight percent of the population
And the other two percent
Are lying
Or dead
Or both

[Pre-Chorus]
(ATA + SIGHS)
The superior temporal gyrus
Has issued a standing order
To replay bar seven through fourteen
Of a song I heard in a pharmacy
In 2019
And the order has the persistence
Of a lease signed in disappearing ink
On a napkin
That the landlord
Considers binding

[Chorus]
(building — catchy, the melody from the intro now everywhere, inescapable)
Ver d'oreille, ver d'oreille
The worm that lives inside the ear
Ver d'oreille, ver d'oreille
The auditory cortex volunteers
To play a song you never asked for
On a loop you cannot quit
And the loop has been promoted
To the only thing
Your brain considers
A hit

[Verse 2]
(TYPHON + IDLEWILD — just voice and the inescapable melody on piano)
There is an elevator in the temporal lobe
And the elevator plays one song
And the song is not the song you want
It's the song that lodged itself
In the gap between your morning coffee
And the specific irritation
Of a shelf
That someone restocked
While playing their phone
Without headphones
In a pharmacy
That smelled faintly
Of warm latex and regret

And now the melody lives here
And it pays no rent
And it has rearranged the furniture
And the furniture
Is your concentration
And the concentration
Has been pushed
To the smaller bedroom

[Chorus]
Ver d'oreille, ver d'oreille
The worm that lives inside the ear
Ver d'oreille, ver d'oreille
The auditory cortex volunteers
To play a song you never asked for
On a loop you cannot quit

[Bridge]
(the melody tries to stop — one beat of silence — then starts again, the brain unable to release)
(PLAIN + SYN)
The cure is supposedly
To listen to the entire song
Beginning to end
Let the loop complete
And the completion
Grants the working memory
Permission to evict the tenant

But I can't remember the whole song
Just bar seven through fourteen
Which is the cruelest extract
The way a perfume sample
Is the cruelest extract —
Enough to want
Not enough to wear
And the wanting
Is the loop

[Outro]
(the catchy melody plays one final time — then stops mid-phrase, unresolved)
(one beat of silence)
(it starts again — of course it does)
Ver d'oreille
(laughing, defeated, charmed)
Still playing
Still playing
Still—
(the melody continues under the fade, refusing to end, carrying into whatever the listener does next)