From "'Tom Stoppard' Tells of an Enormous Life Spent in Constant Motion," a book review in the NYT.
We've all had the experience of listening to one song obsessively over and over, but under what circumstance? Probably not while trying to get some serious mental work done! We're talking about songs — with words — over and over. Imagine writing a play while Bob sings "Subterranean Homesick Blues" over and over. So annoying! Maybe it helps to set up a big obstacle, to cram out 90% of what would otherwise crowd into your head.
When have you played one song over and over and why? When I was a teenager, I'd play one song over and over because it was a new song — a missive from the outside world — that I felt I needed to completely internalize. For example, "All You Need Is Love." As an adult, it was an old song that expressed an emotion I was experiencing and benefited from having the company and support. You could say that was an externalizing of what I was feeling. For example, "Fool to Cry."
But I really never want to hear someone else's words when I am trying to write.
As for the "idea of a good death," would you like a song to be playing? Unless you're in one of those death-bed positions where you can manage the audio, it's likely to be an inappropriate song, perhaps something ironic about how full of life you are, like "I Will Survive."
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79 comments:
When I was not a teenager, one song I listened to over and over was Intro by The xx. It was the closing credits of The Great Gatsby (the one with DiCaprio) and I was on a plane, and I loved it so much I just kept rewinding the credits to hear the song over and over. It sounds the way a dopamine drip drip drip feels after yoga.
A few years ago, as an adult, listened to Michaelle Shocked's "Come A Long Way" over and over while on a long drive. Sang along, drummed on the steering wheel. I have trouble finding it now; I believe she has been cancelled after some remarks about gays.
A friend of mine from High School decided to leave his engine running with the garage door down. He was listening to Dylan, I’ve been told. He left a note.
Hitler liked to watch the same plays and symphonies over and over too. Just something I read recently in a book called "Inga". WW2, Kennedys and Kennedys lover(Inga).
The mp3 player that plugs into my car always starts when I start the car, even if the radio was off when I shut the car off. And it always starts on the first song alphabetically (I can choose the song or set the playlist to random after it's started, but when it comes on, it's always the same song). One by one, my car is ruining every song in my collection that has a title beginning with an A.
The song that starts every time in my car is Absolutely Sweet Marie. Followed by the Jason and the Scorchers Absolutely Sweet Marie.
"He will obsessively listen to one song while working."
A writer I know well does this in the planning and thinking times of day but not in the actual putting words down time of day.
I listened to The Monster Mash for three straight hours when I had to be in the car one Halloween. I'm sure the song has nuances that still evaded me.
Funny bit on playing "What's New Pussycat over and over on the jukebox.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw7Gryt-rcc
I still do it occasionally, in addition to the songs that I always listen to when I'm doing certain activities.
Ray Wylie Hubbard's version of Choctaw Bingo is one. TISM's Greg the Stop Sign is another. All She Wants to do is Dance, and She's No Lady are great songs for dancing which makes them ones that I can listen to repeatedly.
I listen to music all the time as I work. I'm a software developer and I feel like it does help me crowd out other distractions. Right now I'm listening to Kate Rusby, who, if you've not heard her, you should go seek her out. One of the best voices in the world.
The only time I can recall listening to a single song repeatedly was during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in high school. A few of us were hanging out in the Cobb brothers cellar playing pool. They had a 45 player. One song I remember is "D.O.A." by Bloodrock.
I listen to music all the time while doing my household chores, projects, and woodworking. My hearing protection headset is bluetooth enabled so I can listen to an ipod or Spotify. I keep the volume relatively low, and will occasionally sing along. Whistling while I work, as it were.
A good death for me will be any that isn't precipitated by a mistake or act of stupidity on my part. There is no song in particular that I will want to hear on my way out.
"I've Done Everything Hank Williams Did, But Die".
The Moe Bandy version, of course.
The song that starts every time in my car is the song of a sweet, SOHC motor with dual, tuned exhaust. One of the best sounds in the world.
A song I will never tire of is Ringing Doorbells in the Rain by Valerie Carter... what a voice!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oOv0uQPtWGk
One innovation made possible by newly introduced CD players was a "Repeat" button.
Does anyone else create playlists that have one song - the same song - repeated thirty, forty, fifty times?
My current: Mozart: Serenade No. 9 in D Major, K. 320 "Posthorn"- 3. Concertante (Andante grazioso), Sir James Galway, Lothar Koch, Berliner Philharmoniker, Karl Böhm & Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(I would repeat-play that particular song at bedtime/overnight for my young daughters.)
"Old Yeller" because it drove big sister crazy.
I'll hear something somewhere and have to Soundhound it, then play it a bunch. Mostly primal stuff a la James Brown but not always, for no other reason. In reverse order of appearance...
Come Down- Anderson .Paak, You'll be Back from Hamilton, Are you Gonna be My Girl - Jet, No River- Esme Patterson, Nobody NIIA, Serenade for Strings - Op. 48: III. Larghetto Elegiaco, Send My Love- Adele, Tired of Being Alone- Al Green, Haying- FC Kahuna...
...you get the idea.
"Born Under a Bad Sign", the Cream version.
But I really never want to hear someone else's words when I am trying to write.
I like to have noise in the background while writing but usually not music. My preference is letting a TV channel run. The words just become ambient noise. I only like quiet outdoors. Indoors I find it unnerving.
I'm paywalled, but it's possible "while writing" could just mean the period of time in which he started and finished it rather than just during the mechanical writing.
"The mp3 player that plugs into my car always starts when I start the car, even if the radio was off when I shut the car off."
Yeah, I get some of that from my iPhone, when I ask Siri to play music. It's always "Abandoned Love" by Bob Dylan.
Spem in Alium hundreds of times over the years. Very dense and complex such that I notice details for the first time almost every time I listen. The instrumental version by Kronos Quartet goes best at work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFl875yOgpY
(Note : 40 voices reduced to 4 For quartet.)
A good full choral version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfnEbwcLq0E
Stoppard is the great playwright in English of the last sixty years, so whatever he is doing works and he should keep doing that. He has written plays loved by conservatives and has made himself unpopular with the theater and literary crowds for his anti-communist, anti-fuzzyheaded liberal works. When he writes about math or science he actually understands what he is talking about, resulting in Stoppard festivals at places like MIT and Caltech.
I cannot stand to have lyrics or conversation distracting me when I am trying to concentrate. If there are words, my focus goes to them. Instrumental music and even noise are fine. But I seem to be something of an extreme in this, and others concentrate differently. That's why those background noise machines have so many settings.
art arises from difficulty and talent. 'Skill without imagination,' one of his characters says, 'is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.'...
I love that definition. I talk about "Arts and Crafts" in an industrial setting in my workshops.
I say the person who can come up with a new idea is an artist.
The machine operator who comes up with a better idea for a machine or method or product may not be able to design or build the machine. But the idea is the really hard part.
Once it has been imagined, a craftsman/woman can be found to build it.
Both are equally important. An idea without the ability to realize it is useless. A truckload of skill without any ideas to use it on is useless.
It is when they are brought together that magic happens. Humphrey Potter is one such hero in my pantheon.
Frank Sinatra was a helluva singer. But I don't think he ever composed any music.
Irving Berlin composed over 1,000 songs that have stood the test of time but could just barely play the piano and could not read or write music at all.
Berlin was an "artist", Sinatra a "craftsman"
Some people have the ability to do both. not many do both equally well.
John Henry
I've found for ambient noise that the gregorian chant station on Pandora works well.
Recently, Queen’s “39”.
I’d always found it a likable song, a tale of heroism during the Battle of the Atlantic, albeit with some perplexing lyrics.
Until my daughter told me what the song was really about.
Which is when I realized it’s one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard.
Blogger Butkus51 said...
I read recently in a book called "Inga". WW2, Kennedys and Kennedys lover(Inga).
That would have been Inga Arvad who at the time was believed to be a National Socialist spy by the govt.
St Jack, a serving US Naval officer, would not stop seeing her despite being officially ordered to do so.
They finally had to send him to the South Pacific. It was that or a court martial and NOBODY was willing to consider a court martial for Joe Kennedy's kid.
Arvad may not have been a German spy. But that did not come out until later.
John Henry
Rock and Roll Doctor - Little Feat
The Magnificent Seven - The Clash
Miss Judy’s Farm - Faces
Tattooed Love Boy - the Pretenders
Jealous Again - the Black Crowes
"Cathy's Clown." Ad nauseam. I loved that song. My dad hated it; bitched about my "playing that old 'yow yow yow' again." He was a Nat King Cole-Sinatra-Ink Spots kind of guy...
Blogger tim maguire said...
The mp3 player that plugs into my car always starts when I start the car,
I have a USB stick in my car with several hundred hymns and gospels on it. When my wife is with me, I put it on shuffle. When I am alone, I listen to podcasts, mostly, from my phone.
But whenever I start my car, it defaults to the stick, in alpha order, starting with Amazing Grace. My favorite hymn so not a great hardship. But I've heard it, or at least the opening, a coupe thousand times now.
John Henry
"Father was usually in bed by nine-thirty and up again by ten-thirty to protest bitterly against a Victrola record we three boys were in the habit of playing over and over, namely, 'No News, or What Killed the Dog,' a recitation by Nat Wills. The record had been played so many times that its grooves were deeply cut and the needle often kept revolving in the same groove, repeating over and over the same words. Thus: 'ate some burnt hoss flesh, ate some burnt hoss flesh, ate some burnt hoss flesh.' It was this reiteration that generally got father out of bed.'
James Thurber, "More Alarms at Night"
Ate some burnt hoss flesh, ate some burnt hoss flesh, ate some burnt hoss flesh....
"Which is when I realized it’s one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard."
Not a lot of songs out there about Einsteinian time-dilation.
"I Can't Give Everything Away" by Bowie. Not over and over, but when it comes on I always listen and I always want to hear it. It's a fresh epiphany every time.
I played a loogthung by Suntaree Wichanont (thai) over and over, for the unusual rhythm and harmony, in the 90s.
The reason is always musical, not background noise.
I once worked a food trade show where the booth was directly across from a big Pepsi booth. They had a big screen and big speakers and played the same commercial/song/video with Tina Turner over and over and over and over for 3 days straight.
I've had a crush on Tina Turner since the early 60s. Still do. But this was a bit much.
John Henry
I can listen to the same song at the gym for 2 hours. Currently, I am doing this with Coldplay's viva la viva.
"'The mp3 player that plugs into my car always starts when I start the car, even if the radio was off when I shut the car off.'"
Yeah, I get some of that from my iPhone, when I ask Siri to play music. It's always "Abandoned Love" by Bob Dylan."
Guessing that "Abandoned Love" is alphabetically the first song in your music library on your iPhone.
A brute-force work-around (that worked for me) might be to use iTunes to rename a set of selected songs that you want to play first by default: _A ... _AA ... _AAA .... In my car those selected songs now play before "Accidents Will Happen" by Elvis Costello.
I heard what sounded like a modern recording of an old black blues-guy singing "Dying Crapshooter's Blues" (~ Blind Willie McTell), and it turned out to be Arlo Guthrie singing "St. James Infirmary". I can't tell whether or not the two songs have the same melody.
“Life in a Northern Town” by Dream Academy.
I played it to death - to figure out David Gilmour’s influences in the arrangement, etc.
The entire Sisters of Mercy album “Floodland” to figure out all the literary allusions, from Shelley to T.S. Eliot to Dylan Thomas to Bob Dylan, probably some Ezra Pound, or at least a “Homage to Propertius” sort of borrowing. . OF course, it’s easy to do now with Wikipedia and the Information Highway to plug into; no so much back when headphones and a CD player (and lyrics included in the liner notes was all we had...)
JOB
More recently, with my grandchildren, "What does the fox say?" by Ylvis, not to mention "Oh, I'm a Gummy Bear. Yes, I'm a Gummy Bear" by Gummibär. Many, many, many repetitions but they never lose their charm.
I can recall a long time ago in the college years when some of my friends and I would take drugs to 'unleash' our creative abilities. We'd write stories, or plays, or play music, as most of us had some sort of instrument to fiddle around with (no violins were present). What became most apparent was that while there were always some nuggets of very good writing, or musicianship, the majority of what took place ranged from mediocre to garbage. It was like taking your brain and coordination and handicapping it on purpose, then trying to produce at your highest level. It's just not going to happen that way.
So I have to wonder, if Tom Stoppard could produce what he has while listening to the horrible voice of Bob Dylan (like a cat who's tail has been run over by a car), what could he have produced without handicapping his brain in that way?
Amazing.
What became most apparent was that while there were always some nuggets of very good writing, or musicianship, the majority of what took place ranged from mediocre to garbage. It was like taking your brain and coordination and handicapping it on purpose, then trying to produce at your highest level. It's just not going to happen that way.
So I have to wonder, if Tom Stoppard could produce what he has while listening to the horrible voice of Bob Dylan (like a cat who's tail has been run over by a car), what could he have produced without handicapping his brain in that way?
90% of anything produced is crap. For every good story written, there are stacks and stacks of drafts which were shit. Ditto every song, painting, etc.
Drugs/alcohol seem mostly to remove the inhibitions that cause people to hesitate from getting their ideas out of their brains and into the world. Once you get over that first step you still have to sift through to find the nuggets which can be refined into something good.
I used to listen to Charles Mingus 'Moanin'' on a loop all day doing number crunching and ACAD drafting
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=__OSyznVDOY
I practically need music (with or without words) to program. But I can't write documents or email with it on.
Stoppard's Rock and Roll is one of the most insightful works about pop music (and the West vs Communism) I've ever seen (or read).
Maybe we can commission Stoppard to write a play while listening to Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
Like Althouse, the only times I listened compulsively to the same song was as a teenager with a new 45. But even then it was rare- I almost always had 3 or more new records, so just stacked them and played the sequence over and over for a day. I think the last record I played more than two times in a row was "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd, but then I bought album a couple of days later.
I used to study, write, and read to the radio playing when I was in high school and college. I can't do that anymore with ease- I am just more easily distracted as I have gotten older.
Back in the 70s (basically, college and early grad school) I would loop-listen to certain songs or tracks whose titles I'm no longer sure of. The lineup included Tull, Spirit, King Crimson and Traffic anyway. I'd have to review to be sure of the tracks.
In recent times, I've listened over and over to mesdames Fleming and Kozena and Mr. Terfel sing Handel. (God bless the Memphis Public Library.)
My ambient noise of choice is music, and the default is classical. Our PBS station is mostly classical but on Saturday night they have five hours of jazz--broadly defined, and largely local (Beale Street Caravan, Riffin on Jazz). It's a good contrast.
I'd like to exit to Strauss-- Death and Transfiguration.
Narr
Or Four Last
Althouse said:
"a missive from the outside world — that I felt I needed to completely internalize."
That's one reason I play a song over and over. And another is, I'm hearing the song in my head anyhow and I'm trying to see why it's is playing inside. Or, I'm just going along with it.
Earworms. I'll have the most wonderful song in my head for two weeks. After that, it isn't the most wonderful song anymore. The only defense against it is another wonderful song. But then...
‘Tom Stoppard’ Tells of an Enormous Life Spent in Constant Motion.
Stoppard in constant motion. Clever juxtaposition by the author picked up by the headline writer.
I suppose a guy named Slackard could be constantly ambitious.
Or a guy named Garn-ard could be constantly shedding items or attention. Etc etc etc
In the Spike Lee movie Do The Right Thing a character called Radio Roland constantly listens to a boombox playing Fight The Power by Public Enemy. The baddest of the neighborhood bad guys asks him, "Hey mother*******, how come you only ever listen to that one song?" Roland replies, "Awww man, I just don't wanna hear anything else."
First song alphabetically on my iTunes is (A.) Rock And Roll Crazies/(B.) Cuban Bluegrass by Manassas. Love that album, by the way; I think it's probably criminally underappreciated.
Sometimes I'll put a song on repeat. Recently:
"You Wouldn't Like Me" - The Beths
"The One You Go Home To" - Chris Shiflett (featuring Elizabeth Cook)
"Shaking" - Hazel English (Don't eat the Jell-O unless you want to join the cult!)
"Let Merle Be Merle" - Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen
I was in Pasadena staying at one of those houses that are kinda sorta part of the old Huntington Hotel which give the owners the run of the Huntington's amenities (pool, tennis courts, bar, etc.). The owners were old school conservatives with lots of pictures of Reagan and copies of The Claremont Review. My friend had met the owners working on the Schwarzenegger campaign and was house sitting. We decided to do mushrooms and wander the grounds. We started at the bar and I started tripping about a half hour in. She did not. I think she faked taking the drugs. In any case I happily shroomed all over the grounds including a good hour in the pool and had the time of my life. When we got back to the house I put on Serge Gainsbourg's Bonnie and Clyde feat. Brigitte Bardot, and played it on endless repeat for the rest of the night. Good times.
I believe this will be playing at my funeral, not anytime soon, but---it's an oldie song, Sammy Davis Jr, or someone, once sang:
"Please don't talk about me when I'm gone"
(At length)
I play over and over a song when found on YouTube, that before was a memory so dim it almost seemed to be an imaginary song. One in particular had only the memory of hearing my cousin sing it to me sometime in the late 1960s. I don't ever remember hearing it on the radio then, or on any oldies station afterward. 40-odd years later it turned up on YouTube, and it turned out I'd remembered every word of the lyrics correctly and only got a couple notes of the melody wrong: "It's Cold Outside", by the Choir. A couple more in that vein: The Oogum Boogum Song (before Zillow started using it), Nothing But a Heartache. And my single favorite song, ever, that I can play over and over and over and never get tired of trying to pick out another detail in the arrangement: Just Ask Your Heart. Otherwise total shlock-o Frankie Avalon nailed that one perfectly.
That car mp3 thing makes me feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog day.
And "Absolutely Sweet Marie" was the earworm until I deleted it.
I'm late arriving to this new century. I just recently got Amazon Music Unlimited. As as a variation of playing the same song over and over, I like to listen different renditions of the same standards. I think Ethel Waters has the best version of Stormy weather...Gracie Fields has the definitive version of Red Sails in the Sunset...There's only a couple of songs where Dylan has the best rendition of his own material.
Whatever it takes to free his creativity. R&G are Dead is my husband's favorite movie.
I don't think I've ever listened to the same song over and over but the same album? definitely. Back in 1982, I listened to Joni Mitchell's Wild Things Run Fast and Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom almost obsessively. I'd get home from work, every day, and play them back to back. That lasted about 6 weeks. Still love Imperial Bedroom but my affection for Wild Things has waned considerably (although I still love her sung version of 1st Corinthians 13).
I’ve never ever listened to one song over and over, if over and over means more than twice. I can’t have any music on if I’m doing any serious work. It’s simply a distraction. If what I’m doing is clerical in nature, then I can listen to anything.
". As as a variation of playing the same song over and over, I like to listen different renditions of the same standards.”
Yes! William Shatner does the best version of Rocket Man, and B.B. King does the best version of Willie Nelson’s The Night Life.
A song I can listen to over and over is “What’s so Funny ‘bout Peace, Love, and Understanding.”
"to the horrible voice of Bob Dylan (like a cat who's tail has been run over by a car),”
That’s why people are still listening to Englebert Humperdink today in large numbers.... Or.... Or it’s possible that there is something you have missed in Dylan’s performances... Naah!
I get locked into albums. There was a time when I was listening to the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack over and over.
If you like repetition, give Philip Glass a try.
Listened to the White Album exclusively all through university while studying for exams. Couldn't do it on headphones though. My Dad, bluegrass lover (Doc Watson) hated the Beatles. He'd let me blast Yer Blues cuz I told him it was the only way I could study.
“Pump It Up” Elvis Costello and the Attractions... the energy in that one still kicks ass!
The Court and Spark album by Joni Mitchell, esp. “Just Like This Train”... I’ve been married to the love of my life for 45 mostly wonderful years as of end of January... this album brings back fond memories of my only other love, my Italian-American girlfriend Linda. I lost track of her, but I hope she found at least as much joy and happiness in life as I have.
A weird feeling that arose the first time I heard the opening guitar chords - loud and immediate - of “Don’t Cry No Tears” by Neil Young and Crazy Horse back in the Day: like a jolt of electricity up my spine. Although still a superb piece of work, subsequent listenings did not have the same effect. Only song that’s ever done that.
Norman Macdonald advices "never buy a death-bed".
Obsessed over Jack Nitzsche's "The Lonely Surfer" for a while.
Music is mankind's greatest invention.
When have you played one song over and over and why?
Trying to pick a Keef riff off the record player with my guitar.
The rest of you sound pretty much obsessive-compulsive. Good luck!!
Some commenters have prompted me to think of the most memorable, striking, or arresting musical performances I can recall.
Classical listeners will know that no two performances of a work are identical, whether live or recorded, and for many years I listened to, for instance, Beethoven's 3rd (Eroica) Symphony with an ear especially tuned to a short passage near the end of the first movement. What I was comparing to was the Barbirolli BBC S.O. recording of 1967, which was one of my first album purchases.
I've heard dozens if not hundred of versions of the Eroica, but I never hear quite the same
quality I heard in that old LP.
And what do you know? I poke around online and find that recording is rated as one of the greatest for the 3rd!
I haven't listened on Youtube or checked CD availability.
Narr
That's my recorded classical music story
Trying to pick a Keef riff off the record player with my guitar.
The rest of you sound pretty much obsessive-compulsive. Good luck!!
Be careful, most of the great licks were Mick Taylor or Ron Wood.
Imagination without skill is modern art.
I like that. I play music when I work and write, but its almost instrumental. I guess playing the same song over and over has the same effect, you block out the lyrics or at least they don't intrude.
BTW, nothing is more annoying that having a child who wants to play the same song over and over again on the Car CD player.
Its ok to buy a death bed if it has someone else's name on it.
I can listen to great classical music and some great jazz tunes over and over. With popular music, I can only listen for so long and I get tired. Sometimes, like with the Beatles, I'll get bored about 90 seconds in, and have to switch to the next song. Its amazing how many popular songs have repetitive lyrics and VERY weak 2nd or 3rd stanzas or whatever you call them.
A couple of recent examples of obsessive playing of a piece of music include Copied Keys by Canadian songbird Kathleen Edwards and the Sarabande from Handel's Suite No. 4.
"Trying to pick a Keef riff off the record player with my guitar.”
That’s why I like the Amazon feature of playing cover after cover of the same song. If I am trying to work out an arrangement, I like to steal the best ideas I can find.
>>Be careful, most of the great licks were Mick Taylor or Ron Wood.<<
Watch the Stones' set in the TAMI show in 1965. Watch Keef's left hand. They might be better, but he's legit.
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