The 365 Day Playlist

Everyone has Earworms, I'm Documenting Mine

Credit: Futurama, Episode 2 of Season 3 (2001)

Every morning, my subconscious pulls out a coin and drops it into a slot somewhere in my brain. The coin travels through my brain to a saloon run by those worms from Futurama. They then use whatever passes for a jukebox in my brain, whether it be made up of 45s, CDs, or TouchTunes, to select a song. If you prefer a less grisly example, it’s like the workers from Riley’s brain in the Disney flick, Inside Out, queue up a song rather than a commercial jingle.

We are all familiar with the concept of Earworms, or not being able to get that song out of your head. I would not presume that I am unique in this brain-produced event. I got the idea late last year to experiment a little in 2024 and record every single song that is blaring through my head as soon as I wake up each morning. Thus the 365 Day Playlist was born.¹

I was a Spotify Refusenik for the longest time. I finally created an account in March of 2023. I am, and always will be, a proponent of owning music, rather than owning a license to play it (iTunes, etc.) or purposely taking part in the exploitation of artists by streaming (Spotify, etc.). Even now, I only really use Spotify for the purpose of dressing up the posts on my Substack or to easily share a song via Notes. As much as it pains me to admit, the ability to create and share playlists for this particular purpose has me using it a bit more often. I don’t love the algorithm and I definitely cannot stand being advertised at constantly. Plus, their affiliation with a degenerate moron like Joe Rogan gives me further pause.

All of that was a long-winded way of saying that my monthly playlists for the songs I wake up with in my head will be there and written about here.

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A quick google search or plumbing the depths of internet sewage over on Reddit will find many explanations of Earworms, both scientific and not so scientific. WebMD boils it down to song structure or tying a certain melody to a memory. The darker side of which relates it to obsessive-compulsive disorder if the songs annoy or disturb you. Thankfully, from personal experience, the songs that I wake up with in my head do not annoy me. Since I started cataloging them, I actually look forward to hearing what my brain throws at me each morning. The above-linked article, like every WebMD article², seems to conflate Earworms with serious mental illnesses. Which they can be! It also discusses Earworms that occur throughout the day. I am limiting mine to what I hear when I wake up.

Other studies and articles I perused discuss it in the context of memory retention or emotion, or some kind of combination of both. At the end of the day, I like to keep it simple rather than delve into any kind of serious psychological discussion here. It is interesting to see how deeply it has been studied and from how many different sides. I simply chalk my Earworms up to my self-diagnosed melomania.

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January 2024

Above is the first 31 songs on the overall 365 Day Playlist. When we all finish our journey around the sun in late December, I will look back at the full 365 366 song playlist.

As you can see, my brain is second to none when it comes to creating a playlist from scratch. Though it does not have a theme, it was not created by any kind of artificial algorithm, all organic, baby. Lets hit a few of the highlights, shall we?

I had been listening to “Cool Water” by Kurt Vile and “Barbara’s Song” a lot more than usual in late December, so that could explain why they are featured on this list. To give deference to the psychological explanation(s) of Earworms, Tom Petty knows how to write a catchy tune, so that probably explains the number of his songs on here too.

One song, that I have been particularly jamming to as of late is “Manhattan in the Rain” by Ryan Adams. This song was released on one of the four new(ish) albums he dropped on New Years Day.

The two more interesting selections are “Lollipops and Roses” by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass and “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” by Nancy Sinatra. Perhaps the Herb Alpert selection could be explained by me discussing that iconic album cover with a friend a few days prior, but insofar as Nancy Sinatra, that is just what I woke up with in my head that morning.

So, follow along if you’d like! You’ll find my daily selections on Instagram and Notes. Let me know what’s running through your head when you wake up, maybe we’ll be on the same wavelength.

1. I am completely at fault for not realizing sooner that 2024 is a leap year and so my 365 day playlist will actually be 366 days.

2. This is their bailiwick.