Earworms

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #122

     None of us would want to be judged by the songs we sing in the shower.  If a surreptitiously recorded rendition got out we'd take an hour to uncringe and then begin the task of convincing the world that our taste, if not our voice, is infinitely better than that.  Why couldn't we have been caught singing Cohen, Dylan or some classical aria?

     With rare exceptions, an earworm is an overperforming tune that rattles around in our brains, usually until another one supplants it.  There isn't an antonym so we'll invent one:  "glyrics", short for "gregarious lyrics", may impress us every time we hear them but, for some reason, we cannot remember the words well enough to reproduce them. By definition, that moves them at least as close to prose as poetry.

     John Prine is the master of the earworm, as we can see from much of his early work, including "Christmas in Prison":



It was Christmas in prison and the food was real good
We has turkey and pistols carved out of wood
I dream of her always even when I don't dream
Her name's on my tongue and her blood's in my strings

Wait a while eternity
Old Mother Nature's got nothin' on me
Come to me, run to me, come to me now
I'm rollin' my sweetheart
I'm flowin' by God

She reminds me of a chess game with someone I admire
Or a picnic in the rain after a prairie fire
Her heart is as big as this whole goddamn jail
And she's sweeter than saccharine at a drug store sale

Wait a while eternity
Old Mother Nature's got nothin' on me
Come to me, run to me, come to me now
I'm rollin' my sweetheart
I'm flowin' by God

The search light in the big yard turns 'round with the gun
And spotlights the snowflakes like the dust in the sun
It's Christmas in prison there'll be music tonight
I'll probably get homesick, I love you, Good night

Wait a while eternity
Old Mother Nature's got nothin' on me
Come to me, run to me, come to me now
I'm rollin' my sweetheart
I'm flowin' by God

     The master of the glyric is Ferron, as demonstrated in "Cactus":



 It's been a year since you left home for higher ground.
In the distance I hear a hoot owl ask the only question I have found
to be worthy of the sound it makes as it breaks the silence of your old town.
These letters are another way to love you.

It takes trouble, and it takes courage to be free.
But you'll find, it you are soft enough, love will hang around for free.
And the coldest bed I found does not hold one but it will hold three.
I hope you never have to know what that can mean.
 
It's safe to say I took the long and winding path.
And were it not for loving friendships who knows how long I would have lasted.
You're young one day but youth is rude and while you watch it walks right past
and then... hey... you get your chance to think like me.
 
When I was young I was in service to my pain.
On sunny days you'd find me walking miles to look for rain.
And as many times I swapped it all just to hop a moving train.
Looking back, it was a most expensive way to get around.
 
And I found that all the world could love you save for one.
And I don't know why it is, but that kiss will be the haunted one.
You'll pine and weep and you'll lose good sleep and you'll think your life has come undone,
until you learn to turn and spurn that bitter wind.
 
Because it'll probably be the one you least expect to,
who will wager through your storm with you, who will give your fears respect...
who will melt your burden down... though you probably don't want that yet,
still... the odds fall sweet in favor to an open heart.
 
Seems to me the tools for being human are wicked crude.
They're not so slick and smooth and shiny as some stranger might allude.
And while your longest night might test you, you don't be scared of solitude.
And remember what is shared is also true.
 
Because there's a place where the water races wide.
And you could be hard pressed (in the muck of time) just trying to reach the other side.
You learn to find the only way, or you learn to say you tried.
It seems to me a lot of little towns were made that way.
 
Now while I'm at it... let me tell you about the moon.
Because I heard some people talking, looks like we're probably going to have to move there soon.
All I know is the face it shows at midnight is not the one it shows at noon.
But I bet it's a standing kind of wistful from over there.
 
In a word, I heard that life's a cactus tree.
And should you find a way to break it's skin, won't you have a drink for me.
But... if you're standing near a cactus, you're probably where you shouldn't be.
Isn't this why you left your home, though you love me.
 
Now when I imagine life is only time and space...
then I guess I've seen the best of it upon your tender, loving face.
And the faith that you bestowed in me gives me a solid sense of place.
I learn to say Fire, Water, Earth and Air...
I learn to say Fire, Water, Earth and Air...
I learn to say Fire, Water, Earth and Air... and I'll see you there.

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #87

     What distinguishes the earworm from the glyric, then, is that the latter is fatty and chatty, making it difficult to remember.  The former is lean and keen, moving the narrative along quickly without excess baggage, its strong rhythm featuring few unaccented nouns or unstressed action verbs.  Thus, the earworm is more portable while the glyrics' charm comes in re-encountering them.  You can hear "Cactus" fifty times and still smile when you get to where (4:50) she says "It seems to me a lot of little towns were made that way."  It doesn't get old.  Put simply, the earworm is pure verse while the glyric is as prosey as verse can get.

     Obviously, earworms are crowd-pleasing.  This might lead to replays which makes them all the more memorable and, in turn, more and more popular.  Except for some of Joni Mitchell's hits, successful glyricism is rare but a vein of it has run through our poetry for a century, starting with the anacrusis that almost prevented "Prufrock" from being published.  Today's versers tend to soften rhyme and meter while prose poets write reams of meandering verbiage.  When glyricism does work we tend to think of it as hypermodernism.

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