Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Listening Service

Podcasts

Music: Classical

An odyssey through the musical universe, presented by Tom Service

Rethink music with The Listening Service. Tom Service presents a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works

The Listening Service: Earworms

Music

The Power of Love Songs

15/10/2017

Earworms

BBC Radio 3 - The Listening Service, Earworms

Tom Service finds the maddening musical secrets behind earworms with guest Jarvis Cocker.

Why do certain songs lodge themselves in our brain and refuse to budge? Tom Service unearths the musical secrets behind earworms with guest Jarvis Cocker.

Remember the last tune you had stuck in your head? It's probably back there now... sorry about that... Whether it's Ravel's Bolero or Lady Gaga's Bad Romance we've all had them. But why and how can certain songs or pieces lodge themselves in our musical memory and refuse to budge.

In a special edition live from the Reading Rooms of Wellcome Collection, Tom Service is joined by singer and broadcaster Jarvis Cocker to unearth the maddening musical secrets behind earworms as they pick some of their 'favourites', try to create an earworm out of the most unlikely music possible, and hear from music psychologist Kelly Jakubowski on the science behind it all.

Part of Why Music? The Key to Memory, a weekend of live events, concerts and discussions exploring the implications of music's unique capacity to be remembered, produced by Radio 3 in partnership with Wellcome Collection.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Listening Service

Earworms

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3