Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads that just won’t go away. They sneak into your subconscious. They are epic earworms that you find yourself humming uncontrollably, singing in the shower, or tapping the beat to with your foot or ballpoint pen when you should be working. Sometimes they even keep you awake at night. Whether they are current hits, one-hit wonders, movie soundtrack gems, holiday favorites, or songs from your youth, their catchy vocals, riffs, hooks, and choruses seem to linger for days.
Here, those songs find a home, no matter the genre. Here, those epic earworms are revisited, explained, and celebrated. Here, you may find the song that haunts you tomorrow. Here is today’s unescapable song of the day…and the story behind it.
Today’s Epic Earworm: Randy Travis — “Where That Came From”
Today’s epic earworm is Randy Travis’ 2024 hit “Where That Came From.” The song was far from his biggest hit. It peaked at Number 33 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. However, the song was Travis’ first new music in more than ten years. As you are about to see, the song was a miracle for the country legend, one that he probably thought he would never experience.
Tragedy Leads to Innovation
In July of 2013, Travis was hospitalized with viral cardiomyopathy. In the hospital, he suffered congestive heart failure and a stroke. He was placed on life support after the infection caused his lungs to collapse. Things looked bleak for the singer, and doctors gave him a one percent chance of surviving the ordeal. He endured three bouts of pneumonia and was forced to have three tracheostomies and two brain surgeries to survive. He suffered aphasia and lost the ability to speak, and dealt with vision problems as well. Travis would have to relearn skills like walking and writing.
After a long journey and years of therapy, Travis was able regain much of his life, but he was never fully able to regain his singing voice. That was what made “Where That Came From” such an amazing technological marvel. Technically, Travis did not sing a single word of the song. His vocals were all done using two different artificial intelligence simulators programmed with vocal stems from previous recordings.
“Where That Came From” was written by Scotty Emerick and John Scott Sherrill. Travis’ longtime producer, Kyle Lehning, developed the vocal track using a 2011 demo recorded by frequent tour partner James Dupré. Dupré’s vocals served as the baseline for the AI programs to generate Travis’ vocals. Warner Music had decided to do all of this without consulting Dupré or gaining his permission to use his vocal track. He did not find out until the day of a big CBS interview to reveal the project to the world. Luckily, Dupré granted Warner permission after the fact, and everything went off without a hitch. Lehning has since helped produce more Travis singles using a similar process.
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