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Repetition

I have a bad habit of listening to music over and over again. To a certain extent, we all do; sometimes you're in the mood for a certain type of music, so you'll listen to a particular song more frequently. For me, these moods can last for a couple of days, and I'll actually listen to one track a bunch in that period of time. This phenomenon is even more pronounced when I first discover a song I like, as I'm more likely to play it a bunch then. It's slightly neurotic, I know, but habits die hard.

Actually, I also tend to do this at work. I tend to work with headphones on, as the music helps me concentrate. Having the white noise helps me to concentrate, so I tend to play the same song over and over again. Since I end up hearing the same thing repeatedly, my mind naturally tends to drift away from the music. And since I'm still stuck in front of my computer with work to do, the end result is usually that I'll have a sharper focus on said work. I'm not saying it's the most intuitive plan, but it works for me.

Away from work, though, my brother probably gets it the worst, as he'll often overhear the music as I'm playing it. I remember at one point, he noticed I was playing the same song over and over again, and he commented, "cool, thanks. It's been a whole 3 or 4 hours since I last heard that." Yeah, I had that coming. In my defense, though, I slapped on some headphones and let the random function kick in on my music player.

And on second thought, I don't feel nearly as bad about this because he had it coming. Why, you ask? He ruined My Girl for me. How, you ask? He made that the ring tone for his girlfriend-turned-fiance-turned-wife's phone number. On the one hand, it's a sweet thing to do. On the other hand, they talked every single night, and I'd probably hear that song at least a couple of times each night. I'd hear at least the first few bars of the Temptations every single night, multiple times. And this went on for years.

I used to like that song. It's a classic, and it's fun in its own way. It was one of those songs that I'd hear, and I'd crack a smile. Now? Not so much. It's played out in my mind, and it's just not special anymore. *sigh*

So, I think I'm going to keep up my habit of playing the same song. It does me good (the concentration thing), and I figure turn about is fair play.
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