To understand a song like “Over And Over,” you first have to understand the road it travelled to get here. This is not a track that sprang fully formed from a young artist’s ambition.
It’s a gnarled, weathered thing, carrying the dust of a long and winding path. The artist, Block, is a name that echoes from the raucous, DIY-spirited New York anti-folk scene of the 1990s.
He was a contemporary of artists who bent the rules of folk music until they snapped, creating something new in the process. Then, for a while, he was gone. And now he’s back. And he has a story to tell.
Block’s career trajectory is the kind of thing that seems too strange for fiction. After earning critical acclaim and a major-label deal with Capitol Records, he vanished from the music industry, trading guitars for a second life as a Wall Street financier.
It’s a move that feels like the inverse of the typical rock-and-roll narrative. But the muse, it seems, is a persistent creature. Lured back to music, Block has re-emerged in recent years with a series of deluxe reissues of his back catalogue and a new home at Meridian (ECR Music Group).
This context is essential, because “Over And Over” is a declaration of intent from a prodigal son returned.
The track itself is a bare and unflinching piece of music. It’s built around a simple, repetitive drum loop that producer Chris Kuffner apparently recorded at a soundcheck and sent over.
This found sound becomes the song’s relentless engine, a percussive loop that mirrors the obsessive thoughts that are the song’s central theme.
Block has been open about his lifelong struggle with OCD, and “Over And Over” is a direct reckoning with that experience.
The lyrics are a raw, unfiltered stream of consciousness, a catalogue of the “horrible things” that can get stuck in a person’s head.
There’s a certain bravery in this kind of songwriting. It’s one thing to write about love or loss in a general sense; it’s another thing entirely to open up a vein and let the specific, messy details of your own psychological battles spill out.
The music has a nervous, agitated quality. The guitars are sharp and angular, the melody has a kind of seasick lurch, and Block’s voice is a fragile, human thing.
It’s the sound of a man holding on by a thread, but holding on nonetheless. It’s a far cry from the polished, radio-friendly pop that dominates the charts, and that’s precisely its strength.
It’s interesting to think about this song in relation to Block’s earlier work. The clever wordplay and the punk-rock energy are still there, but they’re tempered by a kind of hard-won wisdom.
This is not the sound of a young man trying to make a name for himself; it’s the sound of a man who has been through the wringer and has come out the other side with his artistic vision intact.
The song feels less like a performance and more like a necessary act of catharsis. It’s the kind of art that can only be made by someone who has lived a little, who has known failure as well as success, who has something to say that goes deeper than clever hooks and catchy choruses.
Is it a coincidence that so many great works of art are about the struggle for control? From Dostoevsky’s novels to the frantic, detailed paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, artists have long been fascinated by the mind’s capacity for self-torture.
“Over And Over” fits squarely into this tradition. It’s a small, personal story about a big, universal theme. It’s a song about being trapped in your own head, and the desperate, clawing fight to get out.
The forthcoming album is titled “Love Crash”, which Block describes as a ladder that led him out of a dark place. If “Over And Over” is any indication, it will be an album of uncommon honesty and power.
It’s a reminder that sometimes the most compelling music comes not from a place of comfort, but from a place of struggle. It speaks to the resilience of the human spirit, and the enduring power of a good song to make sense of the chaos.
It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it does offer a kind of companionship in the dark. And sometimes, that’s enough.
