Death threats, earworms and the science behind why Kars4Kids is the most annoying song of all time

There are worse songs in the world. Songs that denigrate women, songs that glorify racism, anything that appeared on Paris Hilton’s album. But in terms of widespread, ubiquitous hate, it’s hard to top the Kars4Kids jingle.

It’s in your head now, isn’t it? All someone has to do is say Kars4Kids and, like Beetlejuice, it is summoned from the depths. Who created this hellish masterwork, the soundtrack that Satan plays on repeat for purgatory’s most unrepentant sinners?

“The original song was written by a volunteer named Kevin in an ad-hoc marketing-brainstorming meeting,” Kars4Kids public relations director Wendy Kirwan says. “... Even those who were involved have only fuzzy recollections of the jingle’s origin. Seriously, no one anticipated the jingle gaining the acclaim it did.”

The website for the jingle (yup, it has its own website) claims that the volunteer’s identity has been left purposely vague due to “multiple death threats.” So if you thought you hated that song more than any human alive, there’s someone out there who hates it more than you.

You could argue most jingles are annoying. But there’s something special about Kars4Kids that cuts into your consciousness. Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, the director of the Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas, has a few theories as to why Kars4Kids is so damn annoying: its timbre, its use of repetition and its melodic structure.

For starters, Kars4Kids uses electronic keyboards and young singers, a combination Margulis notes is usually found only in kids music.

“We often make quick genre categorization. Like 'oh, that’s jazz,' or 'oh, that’s eighties rock,' on the basis of instrumentation,” Margulis says. “So right off the bat, this music sounds like something targeted at the under-five set.”

Then, there’s the repetition, a proven way to get anything stuck in your head.

“Repetition is one of the core factors known to induce earworms,” Margulis says.

And finally, there’s the framework of the song itself. Margulis notes that it uses some of the features of ‘Hush, Little Baby,’ making the song simultaneously familiar and unique.

“This simple melodic line is also probably responsible for some of the annoyance,” Margulis says. “These kinds of three and four note lines are often the ones specially crafted for kids learning how to play instruments: think a five-year-old playing ‘Hot Cross Buns.’ It probably conjures up associations of painful practice sessions.”

That searing pain has prevented most of us from investigating the Kars4Kids brand any further, but it’s worth a peek behind the atonal curtain. 

Here are the specs: Kars4Kid was formed in 1995 as a 501(C)3 non-profit.

And here’s where it gets complicated:

You’d never know it based on their commercials, but Kars4Kids doesn’t go toward helping all kids — it gives almost exclusively to Jewish families. They’ve been taken to task several times over the last decade over this detail. In 2009, Pennsylvania and Oregon both fined JOY, the charity behind the Kars4Kids fundraising, for “misleading solicitation practices."

Now, the bottom of their site includes the fine print: “Your donation will benefit Kars4Kids, a national organization dedicated to addressing the educational, material, emotional and spiritual needs of Jewish children and their families.” The California radio advertisements do not mention the specificity of their donations.

You may not be surprised to learn that Kars4Kids spends way more on advertising buys than your average charity. Charity Navigator, a nonprofit charity watchdog, gives Kars4Kids one star out of four. It receives zero stars for its financials. Kars4Kids’ 2015 990 form notes it received over $39 million in contributions and grants; its total expenses were $39.1 million.

"Historically speaking, they've gotten pretty poor ratings consistently," Charity Navigator vice president of marketing Sandra Miniutti says.

Kars4Kids spends about 58-percent of its expenses on the services it promises. The "vast majority" of charities spend at least 75-percent, Miniutti notes.

According to public records, in 2014 Kars4Kids brought in $34.7 million, $14 million of which went toward paying for advertisements. Most of the grant money goes straight back to Kars4Kids in the form of its sister charity, Oorah. Oorah's president is also the president of — you guessed it — Kars4Kids.

"Unfortunately, there's too many middle men in this industry and we see very little money going to anything charitable at the end of the day," Miniutti says. Charity Navigator suggests selling your car and then donating the profits to your favorite charity instead. 

That way, if nothing else, you won't get an annoying jingle stuck in your head while you're filling out the donation paperwork.