Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Oracular iPod

My iPod has ESP. I’ve heard a lot of my friends say that their iPods tend to favor certain bands, but my iPod and I have a more personal relationship.

Before you think I’m crazy, here are some examples:

• If I’ve been listening to a certain song a lot on repeat, when I switch to shuffle, that song will come up among the first 20 songs.

• If I’ve been thinking about someone, iPod will play a song that reminds me of him or her.

• One night last week I was thinking about how I wanted to listen to a certain Decemberists song (“Crane Wife 1 and 2”), and then went to sleep and forgot about it. On my walk to work the next day, the song was one of the first ones played.

• iPod even likes to make fun of me – it frequently plays Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” when I’m at UMD (and we’re not going to go into the [many] reasons why that is funny).

And I’m not crazy. In The Wit of the Staircase, Theresa Duncan discussed this phenomenon, quoting an article in the Guardian (for which the link is unfortunately broken).

Does this happen to anyone else out there?

4 comments:

Mikey! said...

Mine is similar, I always thought I was just reading too much into things but maybe you're onto something. I think my ipod wants me to relive my high school years, cause whenever I hit shuffle, it always plays stuff I used to listen to in the late 90's. Especially Tori Amos and At The Drive In.

meichler said...

I've been having similar relationships with music players for nearly 15 years, ever since I got my first 5-disc changer. I can recall hearing a song and, as it finishes, another song will pop in my head... and then the CD changer would flip to it!!! This, of course, has transitioned into the digital world, and isn't exclusive to iPods for me. Even while listening to music on shuffle via iTunes at home or work, I'll find either I or my music player is doing some mind reading. But again, for me I usually have a premonition of the song just before it plays: who's reading whose mind, I really can't tell.

Anonymous said...

mine too! like when i have it on shuffle and like, thank you for sending me an angel comes on and i'm all, that was awesome i want more talking heads, then i totally plays life during wartime or something. also it always plays dolly parton's stairway to heaven at just the right time. ahhhh.

karl jones said...

you guys listen to too much music.