Americana Highways brings you this premiere of the title track from Sean McCollough’s children’s album Earworm, due to be released on May 11. The album was mixed at Little Thing Studios in Knoxville, TN and mastered by Seva at Soundcurrent Maastering in Knoxville, TN. Cover art is by Riley Bronaugh. Sean McCollough on lead vocals and guitar, Steph Gunnoe on background vocals, Vince Hagan on electric and upright bass and Jamie Cook on drums.
Many of us have children in our lives, and it’s marvelous to have good quality music to offer them. Lyrically, Sean McCollough manages to create songs that have the clarity for kids to grasp, while avoiding the insipid qualities of the fare that’s so widely available. “Earworm” explains the concept of that expression — the literal connotations of “ear worm” are slightly unpleasant for listeners of any age, so this is a disarming, charming, clarification. A requisite for a song’s appeal to children is that it is something they will understand, with hooks that make for earworms, while the quality of the song will still depend on the musicianship behind the lyrics, and McCullough unmistakably achieves this. Earworm is a collection of earworms from start to finish.
I offhandedly mentioned that the song I was singing was a real earworm. I was met with a chorus of ‘oohs, gross, and yuck!’ I quickly explained that I wasn’t talking about a wiggly worm or a squirmy worm, but rather that ‘earworm’ is another term for a song stuck in your head. Very soon after, the song was born. Kids love to come up to me and complain that I have gotten this song stuck in their head. So I guess that perhaps ‘Earworm’ is an earworm about earworms. — Sean McCollough
You can order it here: https://seanmccollough.bandcamp.com/album/earworm and here: www.seanmccollough.com