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BBC - Earworms: Why songs get stuck in our heads

Published: 6 March 2012

Music has a tendency to get stuck in our heads. You know the experience - a tune intrudes on your thoughts and plays, and replays, in a never-ending loop. It happened recently to me. So, as a science reporter, I thought I'd try to find out why.

"For a very long period of time, we needed to remember information," says Daniel Levitin of McGill University in Montreal, an expert in the neuroscience of music. "Information like where the well is, or which foods are poisonous and which aren't, and how to care for wounds so they won't become infected."

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