Like Kylie Minogue's mega-hit Can't Get You Out Of My Head, some tunes are so catchy they can drive you crazy.
But a freely available treatment exists for infuriating "earworms" which cause anxiety and distress for one in three people - the British national anthem.
While Kylie may be pop royalty, her infectious ditty cannot compete with listening to a performance of God Save The Queen.
The patriotic song, written by 18th century composer Thomas Arne, is one of the most popular "cure tunes" used by Brits to rid themselves of maddening earworms, a study has found.
Others include the 1980s hit Karma Chameleon by Culture Club, and Happy Birthday.
Listening to a cure tune helps to block the endless looping cycle of a musical phrase that keeps repeating in the brain, scientists believe.
The remedy was successful in one in 10 cases, according to a survey of more than 18,000 people.
Alternative strategies for exorcising earworms included immersing oneself in the offending song, engaging in conversation, watching TV, reading, praying, and even - bizarrely - sucking on a straw.
Psychologist Dr Lauren Stewart, from Goldsmith's, University of London, who led the research published in the online journal Public Library of Science One, said: "Understanding why earworms start and stop will help us better understand how and why the mind engages in spontaneous, involuntary cognition. Does such activity have a function? Or is it ultimately just a manifestation of the brain's background activity' when apparently 'at rest'?
"People differ in how they feel about their earworms - some love them, some of them are totally driven to distraction, and for others, it might be very dependent on the content and context of the earworm as to how they feel about them."
Earworms are highly prized by the popular music industry whose most valuable asset is the catchy song "hook".
But for a third of us they are a genuine cause of anxiety and distress, say the researchers, who conducted the first study looking at how people deal with phenomenon in England and Finland.
More than 90 per cent of people are believed to have an earworm experience at least once a week. Rates of earworm affliction are even higher among musicians or those who see music as an important part of their lives, the scientists claim.
Can't Get You Out Of My Head, released in 2001, was one of the most successful pop songs of all time, topping the charts in the UK, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland as well as Minogue's native Australia.
To date, more than five million copies of the record are said to have been sold around the world.
Last year the song was named the catchiest of all time in a poll of 700 people conducted as part of an investigation into what makes music memorable.
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