EAR WORM: INCOMING MESSAGE?

The Urban Dictionary defines the term "ear worm" as "any song that is so catchy, and at the same time extremely annoying, that it feels like a worm has crawled into your ear and eaten the intelligent parts of your brain so that you hum the song all day long, no matter how much you hate it."

Indeed, sometimes, an ear worm can be incredibly annoying. Last week, I found myself humming the theme song from a reality show that I'm embarrassed to even admit to myself that I watch! It was in my head all day...until I realized where it was from and then I changed the channel and started humming some Barry Manilow instead.

Recently, a friend of mine has been hearing the fight theme from Star Trek--you know, that tension-building, dramatic background music when Kirk or Spock has to battle some big-headed purple alien?

It got me to thinking...perhaps these ear worms are more than just benign little ditties that get stuck in our heads. Perhaps there's something more to it. Like dreams, could they be messages from our subconscious, selecting a catchier venue with which to communicate? Incoming messages on a different frequency, guiding us along, telling us where we need to be, or what we need to be doing?

But what, dear me, would that say about the poor folks who wander around all day humming choice bits from television commercials..."I'm a pepper, you're a pepper, wouldn't you like to be a pepper, too?"

OK, perhaps ear worms are more innocuous than subconscious messages. Sometimes dreaming about cigars is just dreaming about cigars and all that.

But, honestly? I kinda like the more magical interpretation. Take, for example, the Sugarland tune that's wandering in and out of my head this morning:

There's gotta be something more
Gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time
I need a little more bliss
I'm gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might
Find what I'm looking for
There's gotta be something more!