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"Repetition is a smart psychological operation - a way to make you focus on all that is in fact nonrepetitive. The music seems to stay put while you (or your perceptions) change."

Ratliff is explaining the context for why artists use repetition in their music, and how the practice is a representation of infinity, or at least a constant that allows the rest of the music in the song to stand out.

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Repetition plays a key role both in the creation and distribution of music. In regards to the former, and more to what Ratliff explains in chapter 1, artists use repetition as a tool to gain control over what their songs “should” sound like. The addition of extra time in the song, traditionally, makes the song unplayable or the original gets a “radio cut/edition” in which that empty space gets edited out for playability. Record companies need a shorter, catchier tune in order to profit from it, and it seems that what Ratliff is getting at is that this continuous repetition gives artists that freedom to control what their music is. As touched on before, distributors or record companies need repetition too, but not in the same sense, they need repetition for how catchy a song is. Carly Rae Jepsen’s, Call Me Maybe gained mass popularity mainly due to the song’s repetitiveness and how the tune gets stuck in your head so you’re constantly thinking of it, and this translates to big bags of money for record companies. So in a strange way, those that create music as well as those that distribute it both rely on repetition but in a tensive, butting-heads, way for opposing reasons.

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Much like how Ratliff uses Benny Goodman and the Isley Brothers as an example of music created with repetition as a way to create space, Pink Floyd uses 9 parts to prolong their singularly titled, Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

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"So, a six-minute single: that's putting something in the wrong box. That's healthy. Here was a mode of resistance disguised as gimmick."

In this quote, Ratliff is explaining the need to stretch out, if you will, from everyday conformities or even social norms. This form of prolonged repetition allows space, as he explains, to gain control in one's life which would allow one to act more like oneself. In other words, it gives a freedom to dance or play without restrictions so that we might take ownership, as Ratliff says, to make the music our own.

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This photo captures the essence of what Ratliff means when he says people listen to music that lasts longer due to repetition, as a way to prolong the experiences we like to do when listening to such music; like dancing.

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The repetition of the synchronized swimmers all facing the same way, save for one on the far left, visually explains what Ratliff means when he says that repetition gives a monotonous backdrop for which the rest of the music can break off and stand out from.