"If you forgot the name of the song and whatever that thing is you've been workin' on all the live-long day, and the lyric brought you to the dead end of 'I've been workin' on the blank-blank,' it is relatively clear from the rhythm that a two syllable word is what's missing. If you sing 'I've been workin' on the tra-acks,' it sounds funny because the two-tone melody there doesn't really support an elongated one-syllable word. A phrase longer than two syllables, such as 'the Union Pacific Rail Line,' seems too crowded.

The rhythm interacts with melody and accent structure during the word 'railroad.' The higher note sounds like it is accented by virtue of its position in the rhythm, falling on a strong beat...while the lower note falls on a weaker beat...In this way the rhythmic structure implies a word whose accent is on the first syllable, like 'rail-road,' as opposed to say, 'gui-tar,' whose accent is on the second syllable" (Levitin 160-61).

"This barrage of music puts a certain strain on our exquisitely sensitive auditory systems, which cannot be overloaded without dire consequences...the omnipresence of annoyingly catchy tunes, the brainworms that arrive unbidden and leave only in their own time--catchy tunes that may, in fact, be nothing more than advertisements for toothpaste but are, neurologically, completely irresistible" (Sacks 53).