Why do some songs make your body hair stand on end?

Question

We know that the hairs on your body will stand up to keep you warm and also as part of the bodys flight or fight mechanism when you are scared or threatened. But why do certain songs and pieces of music have the same effect?

Answer 1

We all have something in us that is triggered by a sound, or a musical note. Each of us has a different trigger.

Answer 2

iv always wondered that too!

Answer 3

As you mentioned, it's a throwback to when we used to be covered with hair, and making the hair stand up could make us look bigger and more threatening to predators, or help keep us warm. So maybe when we react to music with a "sophisticated" emotional response (comprised of abstract things like appreciation for beauty), the only way our "primitive" brain knows how to deal with it is to interpret that feeling as fear or coldness. This would then trigger the body's defense to make the hair stand up.

Alternately, maybe we have a built-in adrenaline response to music. I know that (okay this is cheesy, but I'll tell you anyway) Eminem's "Lose Yourself" makes my hair stand up, and it also gets me pumped up. I remember reading in Encarta when I was a kid that nobody knows why we like music, but some people think there's a primal relation between drumbeats, and hearing our mothers' heartbeats while we're in the womb. Somehow that's stuck with me for a long time!

Those are total guesses, of course, but they make sense to me. Interesting question.

Answer 4

its the tickclish effect...very true....hormonal effects ....after all we are humans

Answer 5

i do not know why this happens but isnt it great when you discover a song that has that affect the last song to do that to me is a song by turin brakes called underdog