Oliver Sacks Brainworms Analysis

Brainworms

Oftentimes, people can recall at least one song they know that is undoubtedly catchy because of its repetitive nature. That song can become a nuisance, when it will not leave your mind. When a melody gets stuck in your head, sometimes it could take a whole day to forget the tune. A certain tune can be stuck in your brain for many years! In Oliver Sacks’ passage, “Brainworms, Sticky Music, and Catchy Tunes”, he talks about “earworms”, or a pathological repetition. Sacks uses patterns of development to inform the modern reader about the dark side of music.

Sacks’ strong application of definition shows the readers just what he means by “brainworms”. He explains the connotation of the so-called, “neurological condition”, and how it

can strongly affect people. “This is not coincidental, for such music is designed, in the terms of the music industry, to ‘hook’ the listener, to be ‘catchy’, or ‘sticky,’ to bore its way, like an earwig, into the ear or mind, hence the term ‘earworms’ –though one might be inclined to call them ‘brainworms’ instead.”(2) Sacks application of the words “earwig,” “earworm,” and “brainworm,” while sounding very unpleasant, helps define the musical repetition that plays in some people’s heads. “Rose R., one of the post-encephalitic Parkinsonian patients I described in Awakenings, told me how during her frozen states she had often been ‘confined,’ as she put it, in ‘a musical padlock’. . .”(9) There are countless different words to help people understand this neurological phenomenon, and what exactly it means. Using the definition pattern of development, Sacks helps the audience accept the unfavorable outcomes of catchy music.
Sacks utilizes the compare and contrast pattern to show the audience the negative side to brainworms.

Whether she compares it to illnesses, or images, the earworm is an annoying result of music. “The phenomenon of brainworms seem similar, too, to the way in which people with autism of Tourette’s syndrome or obsessive-compulsive disorder may become hooked by a sound or a word or a noise and repeat it, or echo it, aloud to themselves, for weeks at a time.”(9) Sacks compares the pathological repetition to different illnesses. By doing so, he draws out the idea that a brainworm, or musical image, is a neurological condition. “Some of my correspondents compare brainworms to visual afterimages, and as someone who is prone to both, I feel their similarity too. . .After reading EEGS intently for several hours, I may have to stop because I start seeing EEGS squiggles all over the walls and ceiling. . .And astronauts, returning from a week spent in a near-zero gravity conditions of space, need several days to regain their ‘earth legs’ once again.”(13) Sacks compares the brainworm to repetitive images that stick in your head or even space travel jet lag. He shows contrast by explaining the difference between repetitive music, and an earworm. “Perhaps, therefore, we should not be surprised, should not complain if the balance sometimes shifts too far and our musical sensitivity becomes a vulnerability.”(15) Many of our greatest singers, composers, and poets exert repetition in their

work. This does not make it an earworm unless the tune sticks in a particular person’s head. Sacks compares and contrasts between major things such as space travel, and mental replays, to inform people today about the not-so-great side of repetitive music.
Using description aids Sacks in showing the modern audience the dark side of music. He describes auditory and emotions to help readers understand and imagine what he is talking about by pathological repetitions. “This was an accumulating and a repetitive song, and one that must have been sung (in its Hebrew version) many times in our Orthodox household. The additions, which became longer and longer with each verse, were sung with a mournful emphasis ending with a plaintive fourth. This little phrase of six notes in a minor key would be sung (I counted!) forty-six times in the course of the song, and this repetition hammered it into my head.”(6) Sacks describes to the readers the sound of the music that was playing continuously in his head. He gives us a sense of what was going on in his mind. “For those with neurological conditions, brainworms or allied phenomena—the echoic or automatic or compulsive repetition of tones or words—may take on additional force.”(9) Using words such as “echoic” helps the readers understand because they can almost imagine hearing it themselves. Sacks values considerably great descriptive words to help the audience experience what he is talking about by brainworms.

Sacks benefits from using different patterns of development in his passage “Brainworms, Sticky Music, and Cathy Tunes”, to inform the audience about the negative side of music.

He applies definition, compare and contrast, and description all throughout his writing to fully develop his explanations for these so-called earworms. Most readers can look at this passage and think of at least one brainworm they have experienced in their mind. Maybe it is a commercial, or maybe it is a movie’s theme song. Today, people can be especially tricky, and succeed in brainwashing someone to think one way or another, simply by repetition in the mind. Brainwashing and mind control techniques are used often today in schools, hospitals, army, television, with mentally insane, and with other psychiatric and neurological issues. Earworms from music may be negative to a lot of people, but can also be helpful in numerous ways

today.