overplayed

Don’t you hate it when a good song gets overplayed? It is out-and-out the worst.

Ok, maybe not the worst, but it’s pretty bad, mostly because something quite enjoyable has now been ruined forever.

This is one of the reasons I just can’t stand listening to the radio.

I’ve found this happens all the time with Christian worship music. Some artist puts out a really moving, powerful song and, before you know it, everyone is playing it all the time. Suddenly you’re wondering if being deaf might not be that bad after all.

Of course, this happens with all kinds of music. I distinctly remember when The Bodyguard came out and I was subjected to hearing Whitney Houston sing, “I Will Always Love You” more times than should be legally permissible under any jurisdiction.

Overplayed songs are the audio equivalent of eating too many pancakes, what once is God’s fluffy golden-brown gift from heaven becomes a morbid, hellish form of unthinkable torture. 

What is it that makes us lose our sense of moderation and indulge in something far beyond any reasonable level of enjoyment?

I think C. S. Lewis may have touched on this in his book, Surprised By Joy. 

“Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is.”

Too often we exchange joy for pleasure and then lose both. We find something which brings just the faintest glimmer of joy and then grasp it so tight, we squeeze all the joy out of the thing until the wet sponge we once held is now just a bit of chalky dust ground into the folds of our palms.

Even the creative process is subject to such dreadful behavior. 

We discover some method, some little trick that brings a measure of success and we cling to it like a life raft in the middle of a tempestuous ocean.

Trouble is, the same thing over and over gets old fast and a life raft can only take so many waves before it goes under.

Certainly, it’s good to take the time to appreciate a thing of art and beauty, but if you don’t eventually set is aside to make way for other things, you’ll drain all the life out of it, like some obsessive vampire. Instead, keep the door open for a fresh gust of the new to flow in. And mind the garlic.

Heck, I’ll bet even Whitney Houston had to turn off the radio for a while when her song came out. 

I’d also wager she shares my feelings for pancakes. Come to think of it, maybe that’s really what her song was about …