I have the peculiar habit of listening to the same song over and over, often for hours, sometimes days at a time.
I listen to the song until I’ve digested it. Until it’s become a part of my body. A kind of entrainment.
It becomes so familiar that I can hum it from start to finish. The musical equivalent of drawing someone’s face from memory.
Then, one day, something changes. The magic is gone. I set the song aside (sometimes to be rediscovered later) and move onto the next.
It started, I think, in middle school with my first iPod, which I loaded with classical music purchased from iTunes. I’ve never been a fan of “shuffle,” instead lavishing in the “repeat” icon.
On Spotify, where I (guiltily) do most of my listening now, it looks like a circular arrow. On Apple Music, an infinity symbol. There’s something appealing about the idea of a song repeated until the end of time.
But no matter the technology, it’s about a simple desire. A child’s squealing “Again! Again!” Or the “Encore! Encore!” after an opera aria.
For this post, I tried to find my most-listened song on Spotify. I felt as if it would reveal some truth. That the number of plays would have some symbolic significance.
There are websites, such as last.fm, that can tell you this information. But there is no way to do it retroactively.
My best guess: the last movement of Philip Glass’s third string quartet, “Mishima,” played by the Kronos Quartet.
I’ve listened to the whole album, which came out in 1995 (a year before I was born), dozens, if not hundreds, of times. But that movement, specifically, has latched onto my brain.
I first listened as a child, sound trickling from the speakers of our green Volvo. I liked how it seemed to line up with the yellow poles that whizzed by.
When I got the iPod, I downloaded the CD. I listened on the school bus, my headphones forming a protective cocoon no one could infiltrate.
Right now, as I write, I’m streaming on Spotify.
Glass’s music is known for repetitiveness. This movement has a churning circularity to it. Overlayed by the most comforting melody I’ve ever heard. Like a pat on the back.
They say that anxious people rewatch TV shows. Is this also true of listening on repeat?
Music has well-known uses for mood regulation. Think pump-up music. Or post-breakup wallowing.
I, personally, don’t listen to music to feel any particular emotion. I just like the predictability.
Music, of course, is full of ups and downs. But listening on repeat means you know what’s coming.
Last year, after many years of suspicion, I got an autism diagnosis. (It’s something I don’t talk about a lot because I find people’s reactions — mostly disbelief — to be challenging.)
But I’ve since learned that listening on repeat can be a type of stimming, or self-stimulatory behavior.
Some examples of stims are rocking, pacing, finger tapping, or hand flapping. Everyone stims. Autistic people just do it more.
I realize now that practicing the cello is the ultimate kind of stimming. The musical and physical repetition. The vibration in my body. I like to stick one of the pegs in my left ear so that I feel it in my skull.
For me, music and autism are inextricably linked. Classical music is one of my oldest “special interests,” though I prefer “loves.”
The paradox about autism, though, is that coupled with this sensory seeking is a kind of oversensitivity. The sound of coughing sends me into a rage. I can’t go to loud concerts without earplugs.
On Tuesday, Oct. 4, I heard the Attacca Quartet perform in the crypt of the Church of the Intersession as part of the series “Death of Classical.”
One of the pieces on the program was Glass’s “Mishima” string quartet. Mike Nicolas stood in for cellist Andrew Yee, who was sick.
The quartet took the first movements much slower than the Kronos recording. Things didn’t quite line up, like windshield wipers just out of sync. But then they got to the last movement.
They took it faster than I was used to. The playing was also crisper than Kronos. Almost like a Renaissance viol consort. That is, except for the beautiful slides in the first violin.
Even though it was different, I loved it.
There is something contradictory about listening on repeat. Music is all about expectation and surprise. The subtle interplay between the two.
But it is human nature to enjoy the familiar. It’s the same reason some people prefer pop to classical. Or warhorses to lesser-knowns.
Listening on repeat is something I’ll always do. But, as alluded before, it’s only possible in recordings. That is, short of yelling out “encore!” after every aria (which most singers don’t appreciate).
And as much as I love my noise-cancelling headphones, there’s nothing like going to a live performance.
So, I’m learning to enjoy surprise more. To be fully present at concerts, not thinking about how badly I want to re-listen to that one movement once I get home.
Because the first time you hear a song only happens once.
