Anyone who has ever lived with me would report that I have one bad habit that is singularly intolerable: I am extremely obsessive in my consumption of music.
This takes the unfortunate form of a tendency to listen to specific things over and over. Not just a type of music, or a particular artist – I am capable of listening to the same song all day long without any variation.
I recognize and put the smack down on most of my compulsions. But when it comes to music, I’ve decided that so long as I have ten songs playing I am fine.
Bystanders might not agree, and a few have been known to shriek in rage when I hit the play button for the seventeenth time in an afternoon.
When I walked off the plane from the most recent Seattle trip I flipped through the borrowed iPod, selected an album I’d never really listened to that suited my mood, and turned it on.
Three months later I know every last word and intonation and I’m still listening. In fact, since I have a Walkman phone now, I’m listening more than I would have before.
Efforts to change this have been unnerving, and mostly include adding extra songs from the same artist. It is unfortunate that my brain seizes on random enthusiasms, though I suppose it is good that I’m not in a Rhinestone Cowboy sort of mood.
This winter will forever be connected to a specific album I never approved of in the first place.
Spring is imminent. I need to find some new music.