One of my earliest memories of overdoing it re: listening to a piece of music was famed Greek composer Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire theme. It was 1982 and I was seven. My parents had procured for the family a “45” single record, brought home from the nearby Rose’s department store, and, whoa... hooked me.

The song length was a svelte three and a half minutes. My ears could quickly get a “hit,” then I could go about my kid duties until the need to medicate again surfaced. The repeat was harmless, mostly palatable to the household, and, well, annoyingly okay. (I think also near this time my dad gave me headphones for my birthday.)

However, as a U.S. suburban, product consuming seven year-old, I didn’t have the same relationship with, for instance, repeating cartoons (this was before VCRs, so, Fisher-Price Movie Viewer anyone?). Rarely did I feel endorphins of pleasure if the three minute Tom & Jerry episode coming through the tube was one I’d seen before. This was even true of Road Runner ones—my alleged favorites in the Warner Bros. catalog.

I wasn’t redrawing or re-doing the coloring of the same picture, or re-reading the same Golden Books. I’m not saying I didn’t go back occasionally to the same material. I did freak out to watch another year’s Thanksgiving evening broadcast of The Wizard of Oz on CBS. But I had a general instinct, as far back as I can remember: enjoy art/creative things pretty much once: draw close to it, savor it, then let it go; there are more adventures ahead.

Not so with music. It’s repeatability was – is – always… there.

What’s the deal?

What are we talking about?

How does creativity, art, artistry happen for the arts receiver in terms of repeatability?

You can listen to a favorite song, perhaps, once every other month or so for thirty years. Never flinch; never question it. Of course you do, it’s an all-time fave. To love music is to love repeatability. It’s how it goes. I mean, I know pop radio is pretty much gone as we once knew it, but this had to be a foundational principle. Play. More. Dave Mathews Band (and not the new stuff; mid-90s only!).

But it’s different re-visiting a favorite movie, favorite comedic bit, or all-time top audio book. You, me: we do go back, but my suspicion, my thesis, is that outside of music we go back far less.

Years ago I worked at a university that had a sculpture in a new building (one I wasn’t regularly in) that I really, really liked. It drew me in and I thought of it at random times when I wasn’t near it or working at all. It was these marble figurines doing a thing. It wasn’t that big and it wasn’t very well lit, featured, or mounted. No matter.

But I remember two ideas rattling in my head: 1) wanting to go back and “be with” the sculpture, stare at it, in some way demystify it. And, 2) “Why do that? It’s a sculpture, bro. You are too busy.” The second thing, I must sadly report, won out.

But if the sculpture had been a song…

Well, I hope you are getting the point.

If a short piece of audio fiction is good enough, affecting enough, does a listener, a “fan,” go back?

In my last Substack post I featured a recently made fake audio commercial about a product called “Teethbrush.” It’s one and one-half minutes long. I don’t know that it’s great but it did hit some pleasing “note(s)” in my humble opinion.

Here’s my question, framed yet again: if a piece of non-musical audio, whether brilliant comedy, inspirational speech, deftly told story, etc., was “right” enough, could it be on par with your favorite song? Would you go back to get a fix every other month with the intensity and/or frequency of, say, Beyoncé, The Beatles, and/or, Billie Eilish?

I welcome thoughts, audio suggestions, rebukes, and/or jokes. Feel free to bring up how boring the movie Chariots of Fire is, despite the great soundtrack.

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