'Earworm' is just a literal translation of a fairly normal German word. I seem to remember Ollie mentioning a record shop a while back called Herr somebody-or-other's Ohrwurmoase (oasis of catchy tunes!).

I have a few that recur regularly, rather like dreams but more irritating and less meaningful. One is the first movement of Beethoven's 6th Symphony, which has been a problem ever since I wrote an analysis essay on it for 'A'-level music (I think it was the first sonata form I ever analysed on my own). Another is a tune I wrote myself for what I naively imagined at the age of 16/17 could count as a Symphony of my own, although I can now see that it's about the most unsymphonic tune imaginable. The fact that it's essentially a C major rising scale with octave displacements doesn't really help; nor does the resolutely moderato tempo or its tendency to loop round and round back to its beginning, although that does seem to be one of the factors allowing it to stick in my brain (similarly with the Beethoven 'Pastoral': I rarely actually very far into the movement, the exposition or fragments thereof just play on auto-repeat until I get run over by a passing bus or my head meets a lamppost/squirrel/banana-skin etc.).

If the Performing Rights Society could get into my cranium they'd be pursuing me for about 20 years of back-payments for almost all of the Brandenburg Concertos...  particularly No #3 last movement,  when it goes off into that descending cycle-of-fifths that I always misremember,  and end up swirling around in the lower depths looking for the exit to the tonic key again...

Also spinning in my head this week I've had Fennimore's aria from SILBERSEE (prompted by a mention on these boards, no doubt), the witches from Verdi's MACBETH, and the DSCH Piano Concerto No 1...   in fact they are ALL due to mentions here!!  

Believe me, IRF, when I say that not knowing the words of G&S patter songs is always best, because when you DO know all the words, you end up with the song on the brain in its entirety.

The Nightmare Song from Iolanthe is the worst, as it's linear rather than strophic, so you can't even "just" have all of one verse going round your head... but I suppose that's the point!

Which reminds me - another thing on my internal muzak yesterday was the Act 1 finale (or excerpts thereof) from Iolanthe.  The connection was that I was listening to William Dazeley and Claire Rutter standing side by side singing Carmina Burana, and all I could think was that the last time I saw them sing together was as Strephon and Phyllis in the Iolanthe Prom seven years ago.

That would be Schmocki's Ohrwurmoase, Güterstrasse 271, Basel, CH-4053, +41 61 331 10 11.

Has 'earworm' actually made it into English now then? I'd be glad to hear it. I'm always wondering how to say it in English without just saying 'tune what gets stuck in your head'. Ohrwurm is the German for 'earwig'... but I can't see that catching on.

And repose is tabooed by anxiety...

Oh yes, GG, there were Turnabout LPs. Many of them had rather colourful, cartoon-like covers. I had two dics from the series, I think: Arbeau's Orchesographie (the source of the tunes for Warlock's Capriol Suite, and a Copland disc conducted by Donald Johanos. Sourced from American Vox, produced by Decca, they retailed at 17/6 when first released - around 1967, IIRC.

Perhaps they're earworms because of their point of entry, rather than place of eventual residence. Would the slang term for them be lugworms?

Yes indeed, I used to have that one too, featuring IIRC Robert Veyron-Lacroix on (highly ornate) harpsichord continuo and the Louis de Froment Chamber Ensemble, which sounded like they were using one string player per part, rather radically in those days, though on modern instruments of course. Whenever I hear anyone else's performances of those pieces (Stephen Preston with the English Concert is my favourite) the ghost of that old recording is always in the background, especially no.5 with its muted strings and (in this case) lute-stopped harpsichord.

Oh, and, while I'm here, my brain has been oscillating wildly between the Anthony Braxton piece (Composition no.354) I was listening to in the car, the opening of RVW's 5th, and some music that doesn't yet exist anywhere else and probably according to at least one Member I can think of is is it not probably best kept where it is.