The latest musical addiction.

Occasionally I will come across a song that I love so much it almost becomes an addiction and I have to play it over and over until I’m saturated it in.  I’ve had this before with the song ‘Hide and Seek’ by Imogen Heap and I played this song numerous times each day for many months.  But I’ve experienced this again recently with another song that had me hooked so badly I could barely go an hour without playing it and when I did, I would play it two or three times in a row.

The song in question is ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ by Gotye.



I heard of it first via a magazine recommendation and I checked it out on YouTube. I must’ve played it ten times that first night and I was mesmerised by the video, the music and the lyrics.  Then I did the unthinkable (for me) and I bought that single track from itunes, my first ever itunes purchase.  The complete album the song features on was only available on import and was very expensive, but the song had caught me so badly that I had to have it with me the next day at work.  So, one trip to itunes and a few clicks later and I had the song on my ipod.

The thing with an ipod and itunes as I’ve mentioned in a previous article (‘Where’s the nearest iPod anonymous meeting?’) is that it counts how many times you’ve played a track and I could soon see that within two days I had played the song over 50 times.  By the end of the week it had slowed a little, but I was over 100 listens and still going strong.  It had become the most listened to track on my ipod in the space of a week.

One friend warned me not to ‘kill’ the song by overplaying it, but I couldn’t help myself and by the middle of the week I had decided if I wore the song out then so be it, I had to keep playing it.

I played the song to my assistant and she also loved it.  I’m sure some of the music I’ve played for her has hit very wide of the mark and when this song came along to captivate her she was as addicted as I was.  If we played it and when it ended I was still working, her hand would sneakily reach out and press play one more time until we were bobbing our heads along to the intro and then singing with gusto at the chorus.

She, like me, adored the chorus and the powerful lyrics.  We would sing them out loud and laugh and smile as we both accentuated certain parts.  We both adore the part when Kimbra joins the song and the way she adds impact to the songs crescendo and balances out the male point of view at the start of the song.

I’m guessing the addiction with this song isn’t just a problem I suffer with, as when I first played the song on YouTube a few weeks ago it had 13 million views and when I went back again recently this figure is rapidly climbing to 18 million. 

I’m gradually playing the song less now, but still about 5 or 6 times a day and I have loved every play of it so far.  I haven’t ‘killed’ the song yet and I guess like ‘Hide and Seek’ after a few months away from it I will come back to ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ and love it all over again with renewed vigour.

Music is my passion and this song is a particularly addictive morsel, but I’m so glad I found it and have it in my life.  Now I just need to buy the album it came from (after already buying Gotye’s other albums) and I have to see him live.  These things are all just ways I feed my habit.