karaoke

Most of us know what it's like to get a song stuck in your head, but how many of us spend most of our day with song after song playing in our brains, triggered by the things we or other people say?

Quite a few of us, apparently.

Social media creator Chrissy Allen shared a video on Instagram that is resonating with thousands who "can't have a single conversation without your brain thinking of a song."

Watch and see if this is you:

"My mind is a literal jukebox," Allen wrote. Same, friend. Same.

Over 18,000 people commented on the video commiserating about being walking karaoke machines.

"I am a teacher and the other day I said, 'Okay everyone stop what you’re doing' and then without thinking said
'Cause I’m about to ruin the image and the style that you’re use to' and the entire class stared at me confused and not knowing what just happened. I then realized I am 50 and my head is filled with old lyrics."

"All the neurodivergent peeps having a mental karaoke session in the middle of conversations 🤣 and we will inevitably say 'could you repeat that?'"

"Her: he was cheating on me, but you know what's really bananas?
Me: ...B-a-n-a-n-a-s... I'm so sorry"

"Why am I like this! 😫 The willpower it takes to not sing out loud in professional settings. The struggle is real."

"I can't distinguish an original thought from a verse in a song anymore. Send help."

"Very fluent in song lyrics and movie scenes 😂"

"Yes. I too have this problem. Lyrics and movie quotes are my language."

"This is me and my husband. We can't have a conversation without being reminded of a song then singing... We were in a harsh disagreement once and I couldn't help but start laughing, it annoyed him until I started singing the song, then he laughed, then we got over the disagreement and went on with our day 😂"

"My kids 'OH my god!!' Me 'Becky look at her butt!'
Then the kids just look at me like something is wrong with me. 🤣"

Apparently, some of us just have the entire catalog of every song we've ever heard just sitting there on standby until a word or phrase triggers the player to kick on. And yes, it can be a challenge to stop yourself from singing out loud at random times mid-conversation.

There's actually a scientific term for this phenomenon (and the super-related "earworm" phenomenon of having a song playing in your head on repeat). It's called involuntary musical imagery, or INMI, which refers to a "conscious mental experience of music that occurs without deliberate efforts to initiate or sustain it." A study in 2020 found that INMI appears to be a universal phenomenon and that songs with certain characteristics are more likely to be played and replayed in our brains.

“Earworms are an extremely common phenomenon and an example of spontaneous cognition,” the lead study author, Kelly Jakubowski, PhD, told CBS News. “Psychologists know that humans spend up to 40 percent of our days engaging in spontaneous cognition and are starting to try to understand why our brains spend so much time thinking thoughts unrelated to our present task and how such thoughts might be useful.”

While an earworm isn't quite the same thing as having songs on shuffle in your head, there are definitely some song that tend to pop into people's heads and refuse to leave more than others. According to the study, the top earworm songs are:

1. “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga

2. “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” by Kylie Minogue

3. “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey

4. “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye

5. “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5

6. “California Gurls” by Katy Perry

7. “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen

8. “Alejandro” by Lady Gaga

9. “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga

Terribly sorry for putting those into your brain. (Apparently, Lady Gaga has a special knack for writing songs that stick in the ol' gray matter. Thanks, Gaga.)

The question is, are some of us more prone to INMI than others? Perhaps. According to CBS News, research has shown that being constantly exposed to music and having certain personality traits, such as obsessive-compulsive or neurotic tendencies, can make people more susceptible to earworms. And a small 2015 study found that the size and shape of a person's brain—specifically, the thickness of certain brain regions—affected the frequency with which people got songs stuck in their head.

So those with jukebox brains might just be somewhat special, though judging from the responses to Allen's video there are quite a few of us out there bopping along to the soundtracks in our heads.