Tinnitus in Songs

Peter Framptom - based on lyrics to Show me the way - "I wonder how you're feeling....there's ringing in my ears....and no one to relate to...cept the sea (?)Who can I believe in?I feel so ....."Robert Plant - Stairway to Heaven - "You´re head is humming and it won´t go in case you don´t know..."Bob Dylan - Call Letter Blues - "My ears are ringing, ringing like empty shells... (2x) Well, it can't be no guitar player.Must be...convent bells"Nine Inch Nails - Something I Can Never Have - (Trent Reznor from the album Downward Spiral) "I still recall the taste of your tears. Echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears."Nine Inch Nails - The Becoming - (Trent Reznor) "I can try to get away but I've strapped myself in. I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears. I can see it killing away all of my bad parts. I don't want to listen but it's all to clear. Hiding backwards inside of me I feel so unafraid. Annie, hold a little tighter I might just slip away. It wont give up. It wants me dead. Goddamn this noise inside my head [8x] "The Young Fresh Fellows / The Minus 5 - Little Bell - (from the album Because We Hate You / Let the War Against Music Begin) - an ode to tinnitus?Garbage - Push It - "This is the noise that keeps me awake, my head explodes and my body aches"U2 - Staring At The Sun - "...There's an insect in your ear, if you scratch it won't disappear, its gonna itch and burn and sting, you wanna see what the scratching brings...waves that leave me out of reach, breaking on your back like a beach, will we ever live in peace? as those that can't do, often have to preach, to the ones, staring at the sun..."Francis Rossi/Status Quo - from 1998 single Burning Bridges - "I can't escape this ringing in my ears..." Bob Seger - Turn the Page - "Later in the evening as you lie awake in bed, with the echo from the amplifiers ringing in your head." Blondie - Fan Mail - (written by James Destri from the album Plastic Letters) "Beat on my Fender through my Gemini II. Play to the posters on the wall in my room. Thought I was crazy when I thought about you. And the bells in my ears kept ringing, In my ears bells are ringing..." The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Hillbilly Hollywood - (Jim Photoglo, Vince Melamed) "I played some bars where you never wanna go. From Oklahoma City down to Tupelo. My ears would be ringing like an old fire bell when I'd lay me down in some cheap motel." Wilco - Heavy Metal Drummer - (Lyrics by Jeff Tweedy from the album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) - "Classical music blasting masks the ringing in my ears." Mr. Bungle - Slowly Growing Deaf - Written by Faith No More lead singer Mike Patton - "To my ears the greatest sin, feel a bit like Beethoven... No one is listening, yet ears are ringing."

Famous People with Tinnitus-Part 6

Jimmy Savile - "It doesn't bother me in the slightest," he told Michael Church. "It reminds me of all the girls I've known, and all the discos. I'm very happily ensconced with this friend inside my head." Source from: news.independent.co.uk

Michael Church - "I acquired my own tinnitus in the stupidest possible way: on the rifle range at Catterick army camp, while training as an officer cadet. St Albans School in the late Fifties was a grotesquely spartan place, where ear-defenders were unheard of (my fellow victim Stephen Hawking improvised earplugs from blotting paper, and the doctor had to dig them out). After a noisy afternoon with a Bren firing 12 inches from my left ear, I returned home deafened, and though my hearing eventually returned (minus the high frequencies), I was left with a loud hiss. (Yes, I should have sued both the school and the MoD, but 16-year-olds don't have time for such niceties.)" Source from: news.independent.co.uk

Francis Rossi - lead singer and guitarist for the band Status Quo.

Mick Ronson - David Bowie's guitarist, had tinnitus in the ear that was closest to his speaker column.

Hansi Kursch - lead singer and bass player for the band Blind Guardian. Kursch actually lost all hearing on one side, and then suffered tinnitus in the same ear. source from DynamiteMetal.com

Jarmo Miettinen - Rhythm guitar & vocals for the band Status Quiz

Todd Rundgren - Musician

Trent Reznor - Nine Inch Nails

James Destri - keyboardist who wrote "Fan Mail" by Blondie on the album Plastic Letters

Roger Miller - "Mission of Burma...Its career cut short by guitarist Roger Miller’s mounting tinnitus... Miller’s never shaken his condition, but now wears firingrange headphones so that Burma’s full sonic experience--high decibel levels are a key component in the band’s music--can be unleashed upon the crowd." Source from: http://www.fortunecity.com/banners/interstitial.html?http://www.avguide.com/film_music/music/musicreviews/tas148/148_pop_caps.jsp

Richard Pleasance - guitarist for Boom Crash Opera, took time off in 1990 from touring with this band due to tinnitus. Source from: http://www.fortunecity.com/banners/interstitial.html?http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/pleasance_richard/bio.jhtml

Danny Elfman - Oingo Boingo, film scores/composer. Touring took a major toll on his hearing and he still suffers from tinnitus. "The last five or six years I was in the band, my instincts were telling me I was doing myself a lot of harm - and I was right. I really should have gotten out sooner than I did, and I'm incredibly regretful that I didn't because I'm paying the price for it now." Source from: OCRegister

Steve Lukather - guitarist/song writer for Toto, developed tinnitus sometime in the 1980's. "Yes I have tinnitus, what a drag. I wear earplugs now 'cause of it. I found that it was all the years wearing headphones that did me in more than live playing. I used to have the real expensive plugs, but I found some 2 dollar ones that work just as good and you don't feel bad losing them, hahaha. My hearing is damaged though. I always have to say "WHAT???", hahaha. Be careful guys, this could happen to you!"

Pulsatile tinnitus sounds are tinnitus sounds that are synchronous with your heartbeat. Thus, pulsatile tinnitus is generally related somehow to the blood flowing in the blood vessels in your neck and head—close enough to your ears that you can hear them.
Although pulsatile tinnitus sounds are rhythmic pulsing sounds in time with your heart beat, they have a number of variations. For example, they may be drumming, beating, pounding, throbbing, pulsating or fluttering sounds. They may have single beats, or they may have biphasic beats (like the clip-clop of a horse). They may even make swishing, swooshing or whooshing sounds (to name some of them).

Here are some of the more common causes of pulsatile tinnitus. You may have what is called a glomus tumor. Glomus tumors occur in about 12% of diagnosed cases of pulsatile tinnitus. A glomus tumor is a non-cancerous mass of intertwined blood vessels growing near your ear. The blood pulsating through them could be causing your pulsatile tinnitus.
If you had a glomus tumor, perhaps it could also be pressing on something causing your pain. I don’t have a clue, of course—but a good ENT doctor (not all are good as you have found out) or a good vascular surgeon should be able to figure out what is going on, and whether it needs further investigation or treatment or not.

Another common cause of pulsatile tinnitus is “Benign Intracranial Hypertension” syndrome or BIH. BIH accounts for about 39% of all diagnosed cases of pulsatile tinnitus. BIH is increased pressure of the fluid that bathes your brain. This syndrome includes headaches and blurred vision among other things.

Pulsatile tinnitus could also be the result of Carotid Artery Disease (CAD) which accounts for 17% of all diagnosed cases of pulsatile tinnitus. With CAD, the “gunk” in your arteries (to use a fancy medical term—which is sure easier to spell than “atherosclerotic build-up of cholesterol”) reduces the space inside the arteries in your neck leading to turbulent blood flow which you hear as pulsatile tinnitus.

Tinnitus expert John Currie and his wife Ellen Currie founded T-Gone Tinnitus Remedies in 1999 and have been running a hearing loss and tinnitus related website http://www.t-gone.com ever since."Initially most of our clientèle were older and middle aged people such as the 'Baby Boomer' generation, but these days we are increasingly finding our clients to be of a much younger generation," remarked T-Gone Tinnitus Treatment Remedies CEO, John Currie.John cited a recent survey they conducted amongst their clients which found conclusively that noise induced hearing loss was responsible for tinnitus in over 90% of cases.

Almost 70% of respondents younger than 40 years of age were also habitual MP3 users and actually blamed the Apple iPod and similar MP3 players as the root cause of their tinnitus."More and more of the calls we receive on our Toll free number are noise induced tinnitus related and only about 10% of the calls being stress tinnitus related," said Ellen, a tinnitus sufferer herself who handles the majority of support calls and emails. "It is actually amazing how many of our clients are blaming the iPod for their tinnitus and hearing loss problems."Not really knowing how to bring this important subject to the notice of the general public, we decided to do a press release.

"Tinnitus caused from hearing loss is probably the last thing on their mind when the average person purchases a device such as the Apple iPod," said John. "Increasingly we find ourselves dealing with more and more people who are suffering from noise induced tinnitus caused directly from using MP3 players to pipe extremely loud music directly into the ear canal.""It is indeed our opinion that all MP3 players including the Apple iPod should now have a warning label or statement printed prominently on the device," stated John Currie.

"How else can the millions of potential hearing loss and tinnitus sufferers be warned of the potential these devices have for causing tinnitus and high frequency hearing loss?" asked Ellen."Tinnitus is currently experienced by about 17% of the population but I predict a huge increase in the numbers of tinnitus sufferers within the next few years unless something is done to warn people of the dangers they face when they put those cute little earphones into their ears!" said John.

Tinnitus is defined as the perception of sound in one or both ears or in the head when no external sound is present. It is often called "ringing in the ears," although some people hear hissing, roaring, whistling, chirping or clicking.Though statistics vary, according to the American

Tinnitus Association, more than 50 million Americans experience tinnitus to some degree. Of these, about 12 million people have tinnitus severe enough to seek medical attention. About 2 million people are so debilitated by the noise that they can't function on a day-to-day basis.According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, most tinnitus comes from damage to the microscopic endings of the hearing nerve in the inner ear. In older people with tinnitus, the tinnitus could result from hearing nerve impairment that often comes with advancing age. In younger people, the leading cause of tinnitus is exposure to loud noise.

Thousands of people suffering tinnitus, the hearing problem, at first believe that the infuriating sounds are coming from their noisy neighbours.

Tinnitus is usually described as ringing in the ears but the noise can sound like whistling, buzzing, humming and the thumping of loud music from next door.
A survey revealed that about 2,000 people a year go as far as complaining to councils about annoying external noise that turned out to be inside their heads.
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The Royal National Institute for the Deaf and the British Tinnitus Association, which conducted the survey, spoke to more than 1,000 tinnitus sufferers.

One in four said that when they first experienced the symptoms they did not realise the sounds were internal. Many thought the noise had come from the neighbours, traffic, the television or the refrigerator.

Nearly five million people in Britain are believed to suffer from tinnitus, for which there is no cure. Relief is offered through therapy to manage the sounds and devices to distract a person from it using, for example, bird song or the sea.

Famous People with Tinnitus-Part 5

Ludwig Van Beethoven - Famously deaf, Beethoven was also a famous tinnitus sufferer. The great composer was driven mad by "rushing and roaring sounds" in his head.
Robert Schumann - composer
Bedrich Smetana - it was a high E, and it was in his string quartet "From My Life."Charles Darwin - who kept records of its daily amplitude and frequency
Clive Barker - T? disturbing story "Dread"
Mick Fleetwood - T? Fleetwood Mac drummer; "The world's worst is when you find yourself going like Mother Hubbard and cupping your hand behind your ear. I was a major glutton for volume: 'Gotta feel it, gotta hear it.' Sooner or later you're going to pay the reaper." source: Rolling Stone Magazine
Stewart Copeland - hearing loss but no T yet
Keanu Reeves - plays bass in the band Dogstar
Ed Rush & Optical - (aka Ben Settle and Matt Quinn) Ed Rush the famous drum/bass DJ and producer and his producing partner, Optical, both aquired tinnitus from working the the studio.
Larry King said he has tinnitus on his left ear. He also said his is very low and it dosn't bother him
Dave Swarbrick - fiddle player Fairport Convention mammoth onstage amplification (ironic for a 'folk rock' band).
Charles Arthur - guitar player
Charlie Haden - jazz bassist, Charlie Haden to Charles Arthur (Q&A), "Over the years I have learned to adjust my life to this problem and accepted these ear problems as part of my being. In other words, I tell myself that I've been this way since I was born. This helps me to reduce the stress and frustration of this condition. I wear earplugs when I play that cut out 32 db's, as well as using plexiglass baffles. You are seeing the right person in Dr. Jack Vernon. Many musicians have this problem. I take it you know about "Tinnitus Today" and "H.E.A.R." from Dr. Vernon. Good luck and keep positive, Charlie Haden"
Kathy Peck - bass player/singer-songwriter: "My life had really changed when I experienced the loss of my hearing and Tinnitus damage after the Contractions opened up for Duran Duran." H.E.A.R. - "As a former bass player and singer for the San Francisco rock band The Contractions, Kathy had suffered hearing damage while playing a set at the Oakland Coliseum in l984. The repeated exposure to excessive noise caused a ringing sensation in her ears called tinnitus, as well as decreasing her ability to hear."
Michael Tomlinson - musician/singer-songwriter: After an ear infection, he temporarily lost 90% of his hearing for a few weeks, but still has Tinnitus in one ear. Source from: E-mail correspondence
Al Di Meola - musician/guitarist: "I do. That's why i don't play electric anymore."
John Densmore - drummer for The Doors, Ray Manzarek says that things are looking grim for Densmore, in terms of his future as a musician: "Tinnitus, man, you can't...You know, there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't get better. It can only get worse--that's the hell of that thing. You'd say, 'Well, you know, when it's better, you're gonna play, man.' Well, it doesn't get better. The nature of that problem is that it can only get worse."