Inner Music in Fiction and Biography
‘Inner music’ or ‘musical imagery’ refers to the music that one hears in one’s own head. For example, an ‘earworm’ is a catchy piece of music that is stuck in one’s head and repeats involuntarily. Part of the work of the AHRC-funded Inner Music and Wellbeing Network is to create a database of public examples of imagined music in fiction and biography. These might be found in published biographies, films, literature, plays, poetry, published accounts, song TV programmes etc.
We are always looking for submissions to this database! If you would like to contribute, please fill out the form linked here.
Biography (1) Cartoons and comics (3) Films (3) Literature (5) Plays (1) Poetry (1) Published Account (1) Songs (4) TV Programmes (4)
10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories
In 2014, musician Emperor X wrote a deliberately catchy song titled 10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories (Don’t Change Color, Kitty) in reference to the “ray cat” idea in nuclear semiotics, attempting to embed a warning message in folklore that would still be remembered in 10,000 years’ time.
An Equal Music
In the novel An Equal Music (1999) by Vikram Seth, pianist Julia compensates for her increasing hearing impairment with the use of musical imagery
Dr Who
Dr Who, S3E11–13: ‘Utopia’, ‘The Sound of Drums’, and ‘Last of the Time Lords’. Directed by Russell T. Davies. 2007. Professor Yana/The Master has heard drumming all his life, sending him mad. This reflects the dual beating if his two hearts, and affects the way in which he plans world domination.
Inside Out
Bubblegum advert is ‘loaded up’ by the brain for regular mental replay
Lego Movie 2
Cartoons and comics, Films, Songs
Music which is designed to be catchy and to brainwash the protagnists. The song lyrics are “This song’s gonna get stuck inside your head”
Nothing but Gingerbread Left
In 1943 Henry Kuttner published the short story Nothing but Gingerbread Left about a song engineered to damage the Nazi war effort, culminating in Adolf Hitler being unable to continue a speech. Two key extracts are given below. Extract 1: The minister rose and walked back and forth on the rich carpet. His lip lifted in a sneer. The … Read more
SpongeBob SquarePants
A literal ear worm enters SpongeBob’s brain; his friends are trying to drive it out with another catchy tune
The Auditory Imagery of Great Composers
A note of Tchaikovsky’s musical imagination stopping him from sleeping as a child. Agnew, M. (1922). The auditory imagery of great composers. Psychological Monographs, 31, 279-287. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093171
The Big Bang Theory
Sheldon feels like he is descending into madness because he cannot remember the name of the song that is stuck in his head
The Song That Doesn’t End
Performed by Shari Lewis, American ventriloquist and puppeteer, 1992.
The Ultimate Melody
In Arthur C. Clarke’s 1957 science fiction short story The Ultimate Melody, a scientist, Gilbert Lister, develops the ultimate melody – one that so compels the brain that its listener becomes completely and forever enraptured by it. As the storyteller, Harry Purvis, explains, Lister theorised that a great melody “made its impression on the mind because … Read more
Touching the Void
Touching the Void is a 1988 book by Joe Simpson, recounting his and Simon Yates’s near fatal descent after climbing the 6,344-metre peak Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. Within it, he describes being delirious after a climbing accident and has a negative experience imagining Boney M’s ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’.