Radiolab/Earworms

Radiolab

There’s a man, 94 years old. A psychiatrist. A retired one. He hears songs, music all day. And the music is in his head. It’s a musical hallucination. And it’s following his mood. A reflection of his mood and of his thought, if you want.

One day in the bathroom this song came to him: “My Bonnie is over the ocean, my Bonnie is over the sea,… “. Well, you know how it goes. He was already used to the music coming to him, but why was it this song today? Well, it was the anniversary of his marriage. And his wife died a couple of years ago.

Now the music is keeping him company. While he’s getting older and older and older, the music at least stays.

This is just one of the stories of the radio podcast Radiolab. I listen to it already for quite a while and I was planning to write about it for long. I just didn’t know where to begin. They tell stories. In a way that only a radio can. Funny and sad. Hilarious and depressing.

This episode called Earworms I just use as the opening for you to have an easy start here. It will maybe take 15 minutes for you to make your own opinion.

Radiolab makes usually one hour shows. Since that’s probably a lot of work, they fill the time between with shorter episodes of max. 20 minutes. They tell you why you blink your eyes, how quick you walk in the city you’re living in. They tell you about yellow fluff, lies and placebos. The list is endless. And the list is filled with stuff you don’t expect.

The episode mentioned (and linked) above is called Earworms, but showed up on my player as Pop music. The last term terrified me. But the first sixty seconds convinced me otherwise.

Listen to it.

PS: If you find out which version of “When Jonny comes marching home” is playing at 04:00 minutes in the background, please drop me a line.