We often listen to songs over and over again and this enables our brains to lay down strong memories of the music we like. The emotional connection that we also have with songs means that this memory will be encoded deeply and quickly.
For the songwriter, patterns of time and pitch help create the means by which listeners process and store songs — we might even say that songs are so prevalent, so ubiquitous, because they are the most heavily patterned music forms that we engage with. Dr Victoria Williamson is a lecturer and researcher on music psychology at the University of Sheffield and in this video, she explains how our brains process music in different ways – aurally, visually, tactilely and emotionally – leading to colourful and long lasting memories. This might explain why some songs live so long in the memory and why songs can sometimes have such a personal impact.