12/16/2016: widespread panic

I normally use “shuffle” when I listen to my iTunes music library because I have over 20,000 songs and don’t like to hear the same thing over and over again.

A Widespread Panic song comes on called Chilly Water and I hear him sing the lyrics “back to work, I couldn’t have been asleep for more than 3 hours”:

...and I vaguely remember that another Widespread Panic song came on my iTunes shuffle earlier today, before the one that's currently playing. I ponder that it's kind of funny that he's singing about having to go back to work after only 3 hours. So I decide to look into it to see if/when the previous song of his was played.

SURE ENOUGH, around 3 hours ago, a different Widespread Panic song, Driving Song, played on my iTunes. You can see it listed below, second in the list, as “last played” at 7:26pm. And you can see that the song that just ended (first in the list) was played at 10:10pm, nearly 3 hours later:

And if you look at the log above, it's clear that it’s not like their songs play very often. That list above is all the Widespread Panic songs I own. Their next most recently played song was 10 days ago, and the others much further back than that one.

It’s amusing to ponder that everything is alive and that this band was affected by something as simple as me listening to one of their songs. I mean, it really seems as if they were awakened when I listened the first time…and then reawakened when I listened again, 3 hours later.

The metaphysical concept that there is morphing of lyrics in real time is something I’ve witnessed before as I’ve documented. And I know the TV is essentially alive and does this kind of morphing of dialogue all the time. But this “oh well, back to work” happening makes the whole thing even more fascinating.