We’ve all been there — a song plays on the radio and suddenly it’s stuck in your head, playing on repeat no matter how hard you try to shake it off. Studies have found that this is quite common, especially if you can play an instrument or are otherwise musically inclined. But that’s pretty much as far as the science goes. We don’t know exactly why musical earworms are so hard to ditch, but scientists have an idea which songs are more likely to stick.

What makes an earworm? It’s not just the song you’ve listened to last. A song with a fastertempo or where the artist holds longer notes are harder to shake off than others. The bad news is that these songs can pop into your head unprompted, triggered by a single note or by a phrase. Even worse, they’re harder to ignore if you’re working on a difficult task.

How to fight back: A 10-year-old study (evidence we’ve been trying to get these songs out of our head for a while) reports that chewing gum can help. Psychologist Emery Schubert believes that this works because the physical act of chewing the gum overrides the same parts of the brain that are involved with playing those earworms on repeat. If worse comes to worse, pick another catchy song you like more than the one you currently can’t shake off.

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