Score how memorable your chorus is — before your listener forgets it.
Paste your chorus and the meter scores it on the four things that make a hook stick: repetition, short lines, rhyme density, and simple words. It flags the exact lines holding the hook back. Free, runs entirely in your browser.
Your chorus
Paste the chorus or hook section, one line per row. Two to eight lines is the sweet spot.
Heuristic check, not a verdict. Great hooks break every rule — this meter just tells you where the risk is.
Memorability report
Score runs 0–100. Higher means stickier.
What makes a hook stick
A hook isn\u0027t magic — it\u0027s a small set of repeatable moves. The meter scores all four, so a low number tells you exactly which move is missing.
Repetition
People remember what they heard twice. The strongest hooks repeat a phrase or a key word inside the chorus itself, so the listener gets a second pass before the song moves on.
Short lines
Four to seven words is the memory window. Longer lines ask the listener to hold too much. One short, punchy line beats a long clever one every time.
Rhyme density
A rhyme at the end of the line gives the brain a hook to grab. Two rhymes in eight lines is thin; four or more is where songs start getting stuck in heads.
Simple words
Single-syllable words sing better and stick better. Multi-syllable words add ideas but cost memory. The classic earworms are almost entirely short words.
Sticky hook vs. forgettable one
Same idea, two shapes. One is built to be remembered, the other to be skipped.
| Forgettable | Sticky |
|---|---|
| “I continue to navigate the landscape of my emotional disappointments”long, abstract, zero repetition | “I keep coming back, back, back to you”short, repeated, one simple word per beat |
| “Every single moment of our journey feels incredibly significant”no rhyme, six syllables per word | “Light it up, light it up, till the morning”repeated phrase, tight rhyme |
The right column isn\u0027t smarter — it\u0027s just engineered for recall. That\u0027s the whole game.
How to use it
Ten seconds, no account, no upload — your chorus never leaves the page.
- Paste your chorus, one line per row
- Hit Score this hook
- Read the flagged lines and the advice block — fix the biggest red flag first
What this meter can\u0027t do
It scores structure, not taste. A structurally perfect hook can still be boring, and a rule-breaking one can still be a hit — “Hey Jude” ignores half of these rules. Use the score to find the weakest spot, then trust your ear for the rest.
About this tool
Built by Alex, the one-person operation behind FreeLyricsAI. I spent months watching AI generators produce chorus after chorus that was smooth, correct, and instantly forgettable — so I reverse-engineered what the classic earworms actually do, and turned it into this meter.
It runs entirely offline because I\u0027d rather it stay a writing tool than become another thing that watches you. The scoring rules live in the page source — steal them, argue with them, and send me what you find.