The Art of Repitition
“It happened one afternoon while I was working out in my basement. I was listening to the song “Answered” from the group Thrice’s album Beggars, a song I had probably heard a half-dozen times before, when I suddenly realized that songwriter Dustin Kensrue was alluding to both the Biblical book of Job and C.S. Lewis’s story Till We Have Faces. An already powerful song opened up to me in new ways, both intellectually and emotionally. It was a revelation I hadn’t discovered on my third or even fifth hearing of the song. My experience of the song’s artistry was actually enhanced with repeated indulgence.
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Good art bears up and even flourishes under repeated indulgence. I am afraid that today the practice of indulging in and creating good art – art that can be returned to repeatedly – is being buried under the wave of commercialized pop culture. Teenage girls may put Justin Bieber on repeat on their iPods, but will anyone remember his songs in fifteen or twenty years as anything more than a humorously nostalgic memory? Are they rich enough to reveal new facets over time?”
(Read the full article HERE)
