Might be of interest to whistlists 
http://www.rense.com/general40/brain.htm
When The Brain Grabs A Tune And Won’t Let Go
By Jessica Kovler
8-22-03
There’s nothing nicer than a tune playing in your head - until you can’t turn it off.
The rest is at the URL
Wow, that’s facinating, Easily, but it’s given me a rostromedial prefrontal cortexache.
And thank you very much for putting “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in my head for the rest of the day. 
I HATE that song!
Susan
Interesting article-haven’t you noticed that it is usually totally moronic ‘tripe’ that is the catchiest? 
I am heartened to read this thread. I thought those songs were a symptom of my inexorable descent into the depths of madness 
I wonder if our brains choose the song based on some psychological criteria. I also wonder what it means that I frequently find myself humming “If I only had a brain” from the Wizard of OZ.
Mike
this reminds me of another thread i am enjoying. perhaps the whistle community (demographically different, perhaps more post-structural) can put together a list of its own.
Great link French! I can’t believe they left out “Having My Baby” and my all time groaner: “I’m not in love. Oh, no…”
BTW, I have no objection to a whistle tune playing over and over in my head. It often happens when I wake up in th morning. I always learn that one next because I can tell it’s been implanted. (Is THIS what the Crystal People I keep reading about are up to?) 
One of my work colleagues used to continuously sing, just loud enough for us all to hear, “How Much is that Doggie in the Window”.
She only knew the one line, so she’d sing it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
That used to get a trifle annoying.
She almost forgot the song recently, but fortunately I was able to remind her. We all breathed a huge collective sigh of relief, and I was flavour of the month, as you can envisage.
LOL, Martin!
Worst song to ever get stuck in my head… “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” from “The Sound of Music”. Or “The Lonely Goatherd”, also from SOTM.
Oh @#$%&!!!
madfifer9
“I am six-teen going on sev-ev-teen…”
don’t worry, be happy, now
About 20 years ago we visited a magical kingdom on the west coast and I was bombarded by a song about the miniture stature of the globe - no I won’t say it and get reinfected. The family has been back there but I’ve stayed back with friends and watched the Cubs on TV.
I usually suffer seriously from continuous tume syndrome for several days when wrestling with the current “new” tune.
A researcher by the name of Tim Murphy did some research on this in the early 80’s. He called this “involuntary mental rehearsal” or, the more catchy, “Din in the head.” He noted that this happened with musicians in particular (like the researchers in the article) and believed that it was the brain’s natural and subconscious process of learning and rehearsing–so, the more new tunes you hear and want to learn, the more likely this will happen. Of course, this happens with well-known melodies, too, as others have mentioned.
I’ve had “dinning” wars with friends. My secret weapon is that theme from the 70’s show about a large, merged family. It never fails.
I seem to remember that the totally insane ‘Bonzo Dog Do-Dah Band’ used to perform this song, with the dear departed Viv Stanshall singing the words back to front,viz;“Window the in Doggie that is much how?”
Try it,if your bored enough-those words fit the tune!
“It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small, small world.”
Susan
o/~ When the Brain Grabs a Tune, and it sticks like it’s June, that’s armoire! o/~
Rod
Well, I haven’t even looked at the URL but I’ve been having one of those time to think sort of days - nettle slashing/ironing/other mind-numbing non-whistling activities… with Cooley’s Reel in the background ALL DAY AND IT’S STILL THERE…AAAARRGGHHHH!!
Now don’t get me wrong I like Cooley’s, but where’s the stop button
Trisha
A sci-fi writer wrote a story a few years back (might have been before I was born) about a scientist/musician in search of the so-called “perfect melody” his theory, based on these same ideas, was that all melodies were imperfect attempts to sing/play this perfect melody. In the end he builds a machine to “distill” all tunes and come up with this thing. They find him camotose in front of it, and a tone-deaf guy turned it of. (Think about how annoying some of those jingles are!!) An aside in the story was that the really annoying melodies were so “catchy” cause they were closer to the “perfect melody”
I think it was Arthur C Clarke, from Tales from the White Hart.
Another writer wrote a story about another scientist/musician who built a computer that would come up with the annoying commercial jingles, but was so good at it that they were “very” catchy. People literally could NOT forget the songs, and at least one airplane crash was mentioned to this. The scientist/musician had to undergo brain surgery, because he had a “photographic” (except for sound) type brain so that they jingles he created were literally driving him insane.
The points:
-These ideas are definitely not new, but the research probably is, and could be interesting.
-These stories aren’t that farfetched, and could become true anytime…
“dum dum dum…”
Nico
-Feelings, Wo Wo Wo…
Okay folks, how to inflict perpetual melody on others.
Method One:
Play a catchy melody, that resolves nicely
and returns smartly to the beginning note with a ease.
Repeat 4 or 5 times.
Repeat one last time all but the last couple of notes.
The listener’s mind fills in the notes to resolve the phrase,
then the return, and then, and then…
Method Two. Play a recording of a song 4.87 times.
This one is a natural occuring by-product of car radios. Your driving somewhere and a nice song comes on. You arrive at your destination, park, turn off the ignition and the radio just quits mid song. Your doomed to here it over and over and over until the ‘nice song’ is driven out of the head with manual assistance; however, I don’t recommend baseball bats for assistence, you break to many of them befor the songs finally leaves consciousness.
Of course, some songs are more adept that others, I’d like to add the following to those mentioned above.
Arlo Gutherie’s, “I don’t want a pickle, just want to ride on my …”
or
“Oh Loooord, won’t you buy me, a mar-say-dees benz,
my friends all drive porches, I must make …”
(Yes, dropping the last couple of words of a well known lyric is a variation of the above methods.)
As always, anything to help you …
Actually, that how I learn new tunes these days - I listen to lots of trad I like, and the tunes that won’t leave my head are ready to be “learned” by ear.
Sonja