Your Brain, the DJ (When Songs Spontaneously Combine)

I’ve started realizing how weird my brain is when it comes to music. Probably everyone has had an experience where a tiny bit of a song gets stuck in your head on repeat. But have you ever had a tiny bit of a song combine with another tiny bit of a song?

For example.

Sometimes I get the beginning of the song “Don’t Wanna Dance Alone” by Fifth Harmony stuck in my head. But then it often morphs into “Can’t Stop the Feeling” by Justin Timberlake. So my internal music is going something like this:

“Calling all my girls
There’s an SOS tonight, let’s have some fun, yeah
One hundred percent
Every single trace of my weekdays are gone, yeah

I got that sunshine in my pocket
Got that good soul in my feet”

Although honestly, I didn’t know all of the lyrics to those first 4 lines of the Fifth Harmony song. I really only knew “calling all my girls” and “100%.” (I had to look up the other lyrics…) I also realized I was actually singing “I got that sunshine in my pocket / something something phenomenalLY” to myself. But the point is that somehow these two sections of music seem to fit together musically in my brain.

But the song combination in my brain that REALLY gets me? “I Really Like You” by Carly Rae Jepsen and “Habits” by Tove Lo. …Those songs are so incredibly different in mood and meaning! Why does my brain combine them??

“I really really really really really really like you
And I want you, do you want me, do you want me, too?
I really really really really really really like you
And I want you, do you want me, do you want me, too?

Spend my days locked in a haze
Trying to forget you babe, I fall back down
Gotta stay high all my life to forget I’m missing you”

Again, somehow these two musical passages just sync in my head. Weird stuff…

The main trend I’ve noticed in my personal music mash-ups is that I never know the songs very well. If I know all the lyrics to a song and listen to that song often, it doesn’t tend to get mixed up with other music but stays on its own track. (Not that those songs don’t get stuck in my head, too…)

Am I the only one who has experienced this? Let me know what songs your brain mashes together!

You might also like: Unique Music Associations (Plus Bacon and Cotton Eye Joe)