[LMBTO] What's Your Eurovision Earworm?

Yes, you heard me - earworms, brainworms, stuck song syndrome, whatever you like to call them - those songs that are so catchy that they are still floating around in your head minutes, hours or days after you last heard them.  Songs which spring into your mind when you see a certain word or feel a certain way but most definitely when you hear a few notes of it, maybe on a radio or in a tv advert or whistled by someone in the street...

In a nutshell, an earworm is:


Simple songs are more likely to get stuck in your head than complicated ones and it won't help if you listen to it over and over again and if you've listened to it recently.  And that is where Eurovision songs come in - the genre of music that we are all obsessed with and tend to listen to constantly!

Now the reason for subjecting myself to this subject is twofold - a few days ago, Tommy Ferguson of the very listenable "Tommy's Eurovision Show" on Mearns.fm every Tuesday and Wednesday night flagged up a new idea he had on the show's Facebook page:
His request coincided with a study that appeared in the UK news.  It was conducted by a psychology research assistant at Durham University and published by the American Psychological Association, summarising which types of songs end up being earworms and why.  It also listed the ten most frequently named earworms:

1. Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
2. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head - Kylie Minogue
3. Don’t Stop Believing - Journey
4. Somebody That I Used To Know - Gotye
5. Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5
6. California Gurls - Katy Perry
7. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
8. Alejandro - Lady Gaga
9. Poker Face - Lady Gaga
10. Single Ladies - Beyoncé / Rolling in the Deep - Adele (tied for 10th place)

Unsurprisingly, most were very recent pop songs (even Journey's classic gained a new audience through Glee) and none of them were remotely linked to Eurovision.  Even another unrelated poll conducted in August that listed the 'top 50 earworms' amongst the UK public did not include any songs from the Contest:
Not even close, although Aqua at number 21 did sing 'Barbie Girl' as part of their Megamix act at the 2001 Contest in Copenhagen.  Now Eurovision songs are going to have the same quirks and properties that every other song has and there are a lot of them that stay in our brains forever - I am sure that everyone has Eurovision earworms but what are mine?  To be honest, there could be a lot more than ten but I was careful to separate a true earworm from a song that is merely memorable.  "Waterloo" for instance is possibly the best known Eurovision song ever but that meant that it is no longer an earworm for me - I have heard it so many times now that I can shut it off or at the very least sing it through in my head all the way through so that my brain says "that song is now dealt with, what is next?"

I have had a good think (and a quick reminder of Eurovision history!) and eventually came up with my top ten Eurovision earworms.  One thing, dear reader, is that these are all entirely subjective - songs which stick in MY HEAD, mainly for good rather than bad.  I am sure that every other fan would come up with a totally different list but as is traditional in my blog, here are mine and a reason why...


10)  Gianluca Bezzina - "Tomorrow"



One thing that all good earworms need is an immediate musical or vocal hook, along with that 'easy to sing by anyone' quality - "Tomorrow" has all of those in spades.  The instant that Gianluca sings those first few 'Whoa...Oh..." chants, I am hooked into this song and it just cascades from there, the pleasant bouncy soundtrack and his lullaby vocal style filling in the rest and making this stick in my head.  Ironically, if you listen closely to all the lyrics, this song could sound unsettlingly obsessional but the happy doctor from Malta just keeps this on the nice side of unrequited love.  Whatever the intention of the song, "Tomorrow" easily earns my tenth placed 'Ohrwurm' placing...


9)  Lena - Satellite



Now if Malta's 2013 entry had an undercurrent of obsession about it, "Satellite" goes the whole ten yards and then some.  Lena's song about her doing everything she can to secure the love of her chosen object of desire is not only one of my favourite ever Eurovision entries but it is also one of those songs that gets stuck in my head bigtime.  Demonstrating what is needed to be a winning entry at Eurovision and a very good pop song in its own right, not only is this an excellently crafted lyrical entry with that thumping bassline throughout to make you listen, it also has Lena's distinctively quirky vocal style which combines her native German with some sort of London twang and that adds to the listenability, the hook and the earworm.  Everything snowballs from then on but for me that is a good thing - it is a song I could listen to again and again, so in this instance my brain singing along makes for a pleasant duet...


8)  Ivi Adamou - "La La Love"



From a song that the earworm produced brings me a smile to one that I am still uncertain about, even four years later.  "La La Love" has everything that makes this a massive club hit and should have brought it more success in 2012 - the musical beat is classic Euroclub fare, the song has a very simple lyrical structure and the chorus is so easy to sing to.  Baku being "Loreen's year" meant that winning was out of the question but what Ivi's vocals, the pulsating music and that simplistic chant does add up to is my eighth placed song on this list.  I have to say that Ivi's singing wasn't top notch on the night and this song fits into the category of annoying as far as stuck songs go - maybe give it time...


7)  Eric Saade - "Popular"



From the school of lazy rhyming:

We get this high octane pop song with Eric Saade going all 'Michael Jackson' with his style and dance moves and taking Sweden into the top 3 in 2011.  Ironically it is probably the non-rhyme that kicks the earworm that this song generates off in my head due to me thinking "what a rubbish rhyme"!  The repeating lyrics of this song again makes it a simple listen for a non-muso like me and the almost military drum beats throughout embed this entry deep inside my cranium, unleashing whenever someone says 'possible' or 'impossible'.  To be fair to everyone concerned with writing any of these entries, you want it to stick in listener's heads...


6)  Bobbysocks! - "La Det Swinge"



Another one of my favourite Eurovision entries and one where the first few bars in that rock 'n' roll style sets my next earworm off immediately, playing out this joyous song in its entirety.  The fact that this still sticks in my brain is probably due to the emotional nature of this entry - I'm old enough to have watched this live and to remember what Norway went through up to then in the Contest, ie. nothing much at all.  Everyone watching, the crowd, the hosts, Terry Wogan and my family were all saying that this was great and could it give this duo a Eurovision win, thereby ending 25 years of 'hurt' and mediocrity for the Norwegians.  The fact that it did win supplied possibly my first emotional connection with any event at the Contest and I am certain that this is why "La Det Swinge" plays in my head endlessly after I have heard it even now.  One of those stuck songs that my brain wants to put on repeat and rightly so....


5)  Koza Mostra ft. Agathon Iakovidis - "Alcohol Is Free"



Now you may or may not know that I like a lot of music, not just Eurovision.  Having been alive for 49 years tends to do that to you and most genres are fair game.  For instance, when I was growing up in the 1970s, punk and then Two Tone were the 'bees knees' and I was into both of them.  Koza Mostra turned up at the Contest in 2013 and incorporated aspects of both styles into their entry "Alcohol Is Free", together with the ethnic twist provided by Agathon Iakovidis.  Even though the only words that non-Greek speakers could understand was THAT phrase repeated over and over again, this was huge fun, incredibly catchy and a delight to watch.  As it happens, that combination, together with the genre fusion, ensured that this became one of my stuck songs and whenever anyone at an Eurovision event sings those three words whilst waiting for a drink at a bar, you just know that this song and that routine flashes before me...


4)  Alyona Lanskaya - "Solayoh"



Blimey, three Eurovision songs from Malmö, my head must have been screaming with songs playing over and over again in May and June 2013!  I think that part of the reason for this being one of my earworms is to do with the lady singing, Alyona being one of my Eurovision Beauties, and partly due to some of the lyrics being sung in a slightly weird way that make me smile everytime I hear this!  "Ya" being used for "You" and how she can 'play-oh' have obviously passed the Belarusian-English test, as has Alyona making it 'into a hot night'.  The music has a great Mediterranean feel to it, the song pauses for some dynamic drumming and the Cha Cha is mentioned as well, bringing my affection for Strictly Come Dancing to the fore - a lot of the choreographed moves help with memorability too.  This won't be a favourite of some but each time this track powers up, the image of Alyona with her pretty face, her lovely blue eyes and those long legs help keep this in my head...


3)  Sandie Shaw - "Puppet On A String"



Being the first UK winner of Eurovision will always mean that this song has a special place in my heart but looking at it in another light, it could be said that this entry is the one that was coldly constructed to be a winning song.  What do I mean?  Put up one of your best known singers, not only in the UK charts but across Europe.  Dress her in a stunning outfit, together with her (up until then) unique barefoot pose.  Utilise her television show training to be at one with the camera, allowing her to stare down the lens and beguile the judges.  Most importantly, get two of the best songwriters the nation has and let them write a song that they know will grab everyone's attention immediately and keep it focussed on your star singer all through the two minutes and twenty-one seconds it is playing.  Make it sound like a fairground, something most people enjoy, with distinctive sounds that keep the listener's ear interested and compliments the singer's voice.  All of this but make it contemporary for the time.  The sum of those parts was always was going to add up to a once-in-a-lifetime entry, one that would be remembered for decades to come and it is a song that plays in my head once the first few notes from the bassoon starts it all off - every bit of that hard work did its job and made "Puppet On A String" one of the ultimate earworms...


2)  Verka Serduchka - "Dancing Lasha Tumbai"



I said before I started listing what my Eurovision brainworms were that everyone's would be different, that the chances of having anything the same was small.  I might adjust that statement when considering this entry from the irrepressible Verka Serduchka - I am certain that "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" will appear in a lot of Eurovision fan's lists when it comes to selecting earworms!  Everything about it screams 'I am not leaving your head all day, even if you listen to the whole thing, even if you try to go to sleep' - the fact that "Lasha Tumbai" is meaningless in any language doesn't matter.  Combine the simplicity and repetition of the lyrics with the visual imagery generated by this performance (which is totally unforgettable) and for a lot of fans, you have the ultimate stuck song.  In a way, it is surprising that this did not carry the day in Helsinki, given that 100% televoting was in play, but Central Europe and the Balkans went for the powerful ballad that was "Molitva".  It might be one of the most successful comedic turns at the Contest ever but for its full on ability to embed itself in this fan's brain, it has found its way to my runner-up spot...


1)  Pasha Parfeny - Lăutar


And so onto my number one earworm, the Eurovision song that springs into my head with greater regularity than any other entry, something that makes me smile and also is a real pleasure to have playing in my brain.  "Lăutar" kicks off with that bouncy brass section and then has the drums join in to set up the multi-layered musical accompaniment to this song - the twanging strings are the icing on the cake and it all combines to give the music its own earworm status.  Add in Pasha and the two female backing singers providing their catchy effervescent vocals, together with the slightly bizarre lyrics about a beautiful woman at a wedding being entranced by a trumpet player, sung in a distinctive 'English as second language' style and you have, for me at least, the ultimate Eurovision earworm.  I love this song and its quirky nature from start to finish, where the whoops and chants just add to the madness and the impressionability on my thought processes!  Easily my number one on this chart...


Well, there you have it - my top ten Eurovision stuck songs.  I can guarantee that you won't have the same in your list, at least not in the same order but I can probably state that some of these songs are now whirling around in YOUR head and you are now starting to curse me for it!  Apparently there are a few remedies - listening to the song all the way through is the most basic but there is another school of thought that pop earworms are sometimes cleared from the brain by classical music.  Not the most common genre at Eurovision - the closest for me in that regard and something that I would happy to listen to rid myself of any annoying stuck songs would be this masterpiece from 2009:



Did that help?  Your head clear now?  Or is there a song still in there that gets on your nerves?  If there is one, I think there is only one thing left to do to regain some sanity - just tell me...