As I write this, I am humming “The Funk Soul Brother” by Fatboy Slim. I have been humming it for five days. I did not choose this. I was not consulted.
This is life with an AuDHD brain, and the soundtrack is not always one you would have selected yourself.
The Invisible Tape
There is an invisible tape running in my head at all times. It plays music on a loop – the same songs, rotating, repeating, occasionally swapping out for a new arrival that then refuses to leave for weeks, months, or in some cases, entire decades. I have songs in my head that have been there since childhood and show absolutely no intention of ever leaving. At this point I consider them roommates.
Every single morning, without fail, as soon as I get up, “Guten Morgen Sonnenschein” by Nana Mouskouri begins playing in my head. Not because I put it on. Not because I heard it recently. Nana appeared after watching a series featuring this song and my brain went „Oh! I remember this one from childhood and it makes me happy!“ It’ll stay there forever now, and it simply starts, the way the sun rises – automatically, reliably, whether I want it or not. This has been happening every morning for at least a year. Nana and I have a relationship at this point. She doesn’t pay rent but she is now a permanent resident. I have been known to sing “Guten Morgen Sonnenschein” out loud to my coworkers on a regular basis. One colleague has formally requested that I never sing it again in his presence because he hates it so much. I respect his feedback. I do not comply with it.
But Nana is practically a newcomer compared to the long-term squatters.
There are songs in my head that have been there since childhood. Decades. We are not talking about a catchy tune that overstayed its welcome, we are talking about permanent residents who moved in before I started school and never once considered leaving. The most legendary of these, the one even non-Germans will recognize, is Rubber Ducky from Sesame Street. Sung by Ernie. I have been hearing it, on and off, for most of my life. It arrives unannounced, stays as long as it pleases, and leaves without explanation, only to return weeks or months later as if nothing happened.
The rotation also includes “I Should Be So Lucky” by Kylie Minogue, which arrived after I watched her documentary and has shown absolutely no signs of leaving. Occasionally I find myself declaring loudly, and with complete dead seriousness, making full eye contact with whoever is nearest, usually my husband, that I am the egg man, I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob. Then there are the days when nothing but The Final Countdown by Europe will do, which is dramatic and grandiose and frankly appropriate for how Mondays feel. And then, as of five days ago, Fatboy Slim joined the lineup. Right about now. I am also, as I write this, singing the Funk Soul Brother in the shower. Multitasking, as always. 😄
The thing that makes this so distinctly AuDHD is not just that the songs get stuck – everyone gets earworms. It’s that they never fully stop. They play while I’m in meetings. While I’m having conversations. While I’m working, cleaning, trying to sleep. There is always a song running underneath everything else, like a radio left on in another room that you can never quite turn off.
My Friend and the Hostage Situation
I am not alone in this. A close friend of mine, also ADHD, diagnosed in her 50s, has her own permanent resident.
Hers is “My Heart Will Go On” by Céline Dion.
The Titanic song. On permanent rotation. In her head. Against her will.
I cannot tell you how many times I have stood in front of her, arms spread wide, and launched into my best Céline impression: “Near… far… WHEREVER YOU AAAARRREE”
She responds with a face of pure resignation, a long sigh, and in her best Hamburg German: “Ich sach dir das….”
And then I laugh even harder, which does not help anyone.
The difference between us is telling. I have made peace with my musical squatters. I embrace them. I sing them out loud, to colleagues, to friends, to whoever happens to be nearby, mostly my poor husband. They are strange companions and so genuinely bizarre that I cannot help but find them funny. My friend, meanwhile, is in an ongoing hostage negotiation with Céline Dion and losing badly. She does not find her earworm charming. She finds it exhausting. And honestly, given that it’s a five-minute power ballad about a sinking ship, I understand.
What’s fascinating is that she didn’t choose this song any more than I chose Nana Mouskouri. The ADHD brain latches onto things, a rhythm, a melody, an emotional hook, and simply will not let go. The more you try to evict the song, the more stubbornly it stays. It knows it doesn’t have to leave. There is no mechanism for eviction.
The Conversation Loops
It’s not just music. The same phenomenon runs through thought patterns too, specifically the conversations that never happened but feel like they did and should have happened.
The rehearsed argument with a person who wronged me or a loved one years ago. The perfectly worded response I‘ve constructed to something someone said at a meeting last Tuesday. The imaginary confrontation where I finally say, clearly and calmly, everything I couldn’t say in the moment. These play on loop too, the brain running and rerunning scenarios, editing the script, landing on the perfect line, starting over.
I have, through therapy and meditation, gotten significantly better at letting these go. The trick is not to engage with them, but to observe the thought without climbing inside it. Meditation in particular has given me a kind of mental remote control: I can’t always turn the loop off, but I can lower the volume.
Some loops, though, are simply stuck. They have been there long enough that evicting them would require structural renovation. Those I have made a kind of peace with. They are part of the furniture now.
Why This Happens
The ADHD brain has a complicated relationship with repetition. On one hand, novelty is everything. We crave stimulation, get bored easily, need things to be interesting to stay engaged. On the other hand, when something catches in the brain’s groove, it can stay there indefinitely. The same mechanism that makes hyperfocus possible, the ability to lock onto something completely, also makes it very hard to unlock.
Earworms in particular tend to lodge themselves in the brain’s default mode network, the part that runs in the background when you’re not actively concentrating on something. For neurotypical people, this network quiets when they focus. For ADHD brains, it often keeps running, which is why the song is always there, underneath everything, waiting for a moment of quiet to get louder.
Nana Mouskouri has had unfettered access to my default mode network for over a year. She is, at this point, practically family.
The Upside (Yes, There Is One)
Here is what I have come to appreciate: a brain that runs music constantly is also a brain that is never truly alone. There is always something happening in there. Always a rhythm, a melody, a loop of thought connecting one thing to another.
And sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the song that gets stuck is the right one. A piece of music that matches exactly what you’re feeling, that articulates something you couldn’t put into words, that arrives in the morning with its cheerful Nana Mouskouri energy and somehow sets the tone for the day.
I didn’t ask for “The Funk Soul Brother” this week. But honestly? It’s not the worst thing to have running underneath five days of work. There is something to be said for an involuntary soundtrack that keeps the energy up.
Right about now. The funk soul brother. Check it out now.
I’ll see myself out. 😄
