Ear worms and Mashups

I’ve got a hypothesis about the ‘ear worm’ idea of music getting stuck in your head.

If it’s a song that you’re familiar with, but not a fan of it’s going to get stuck in your head easier than a song you’re a fan of.

If it’s a song you’re a fan of you know it really well, you know the lyrics, the rhythm, you know what it sounds like. You’ve heard it many times before. So it’s in your memory and it’s something you don’t need to actively engage any bits of your brain to really think about.

These ‘ear worm’ songs aren’t that. You’re familiar with them, but not a fan, when you hear them you’ve got to engage your brain a little bit, you might have heard the song many times in passing so it triggers a memory. But it’s not something you’ve heard enough times for it to become ingrained in your memories, it’s not a pleasurable song for you to listen to. That’s why it’s an ‘ear worm’ song, because you don’t like it, yet it still lodges in your memory by making you engage with it more so than something you like.

Extending on this hypothesis I would postulate this is why so many people like mashups, remixes and DJ sets of songs. Because it takes these familiar songs, both those we’re fans of and those we’re not and remixes, reinterprets them into something else. There’s enough of a remnant of the song there to still trigger recognition in our minds of it, but it’s been reframed so it’s not as much of a ‘ear worm’ as its original. It gives us a chance to reframe, rethink and reconsider this song once more.

Australian Day and Australia for me

I don’t really know what makes me Australian, I certainly don’t presume what makes you Australian (or whatever other nationality / cultural identity).

As Australia Day comes up people and newspapers / news organisations start to think on what it means to be Australian.

I don’t beat the “I’m Australian” drum extremely loudly, I’m not one for tattoos, I don’t have a Southern Cross on my car.
But I do have confidence in Australia, there is not another country that I would want to be a citizen of. I would not move to another country on a whim or an offer.

I think we are lucky, that Australia was settled when it was, that we sometimes do not acknowledge how fortunate it is that Australia became what it is, rather than what it could have become.

1901, Federation. Australia turned from a colony of six states into one nation and became more or less what we have today (give or take a territory or two). This happened on the 1st January 1901.
Which makes it a little problematic as a day of celebration.

So that’s not Australia Day, 26th January was in the past known as “Landing Day” or “Foundation Day”, on 26th January 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip rowed ashore at Sydney Cove with a few dozen men and took possession of the land in the name of King George III.
There he raised the Union Jack as a symbol of the British occupation of the eastern half of the what became known as Australia that had been claimed by Captain James Cook on 22nd August 1770.

History lesson over and back to the present.
Australia is a prosperous country, part of that is from, digging stuff out of the ground and then selling it to other countries. But it has kept us prosperous.
We have had a stable government one that doesn’t defer to or be ruled by religion or any other silly thing like that.

Stability and freedom, I think is part of what makes Australia for me. We have a huge country, that for some of the population only know from the coasts and the cities. The interior is something on a map, the bush something that is on the news when there is a disaster. But it’s there, should we want to explore it and it’s huge.

On Australia Day I will, like thousands of others will have a barbecue very probably with family. There will be lamb chops and sausages on said barbecue.
I’m not sure if anyone will must on Captain Arthur Phillip, or James Cook, or the concept of “Invasion Day” though I’m sure the news media will mention one of the three.

But I might raise a glass or bottle of something fizzy and possibly alcoholic and toast Captain Phillip, Edmund Barton and the thousands of other people who created the country we have today.