The well-crafted melody or song is an extremely powerful way to colonise or influence other minds. While most of us can resist this mind control when it comes in the form of speeches, tracts, newspapers and blogs, we have much less power when that message comes as a song or a jingle. Music, like religion, may be a prime example of one of Dawkins’ postulated ‘memes’ – those informational replicators that use our minds to propagate themselves regardless of the fitness consequences for us.
Why is music so powerful? Why does it get privileged access to our hearts and minds?
One factor is memory.
In addition, when we hear music (especially music we like) the reward centres of the brain, the same centres that give us pleasure when eating good food or having good sex, get intensively activated.
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