A few days ago I woke up with a Billy Joel song in my head. What crime did I commit for that to happen? I decided to sing some other melody and hope it took over – it worked. I sung the slow piano and acoustic guitar strumming by John Lennon from the Plastic Ono album, Love. Always liked that record and that melody, two hours later noticed myself still humming it. I’ve repeated this a few times since, same results. As though if you decide what to playback in your head, the mind is ready and willing to carry it out, as if mind wants something to run through it’s circuits, and anything’ll do. Left me wondering if one could do the same with thought since ear worms are closely related to thought, maybe same thing. Could you catch yourself identified with some undesirable thinking pattern, obsessive, destructive, hostile, judgemental etc. then change the channel, intentionally? Start down another road, invest some minutes there, with sincerity, and have the result of successful program interruption that has staying power? Surprised me very much that it was so simple to change the melody stuck in my head. In the past I would curse it and wonder why it’s there and wish it away, only to keep playing it back, trapped. Now I see the error was assuming I could think it away. It only takes singing a verse and chorus before the next melody sews new roots in the soil and before you know it you can tell this new thing is alive, you can even hear it insisting we didn’t start the fire.