But more interestingly, many days it's as if there is some particular "song of the day" that my mind wants to hear, and if I can determine an adequate song of the day, I can get very focused listening to that one song over and over all day. There doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to selecting such a song, and I'll poke around in my music library until I find something that works.
Does listening to the same thing over and over hinder creative thinking? For me, I think it enhances it.
It doesn't help me every day, but ever since I first heard it circa 1998, Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky" has helped me to focus on many occasions. Some of my best work has been done while listening to that song...
Bizarrely, a couple of years ago I was required to do some overnight systems testing, and as I struggled to stay awake, I found myself listening repeatedly to the "Snow Miser" song from the old Rankin & Bass stop-motion Christmas special. I am at a loss to explain why that helped me to focus, or why I even thought to listen to that song in the first place...