My Creepy MP3 Player

by Tom Shafer

October 19, 2019

Okay, so maybe I’m old school and still utilize an MP3 player when cutting grass and doing chores on the Shafer estate – and when taking longer road trips and four wheel vacations.  Of course, I think calling an MP3 player “old school” is borderline hilarious – especially when considering that this human has listened to recorded music via reel-to-reel, vinyl, eight-track tape, cassette, and CD (which I still do).  Yes, I do have 500 or so songs on my phone that I employ from time to time, but I love the convenience and small size (and big data capacity) of my little Sansa MP3 player.

And I download music from an on-line music store (eMusic) and Amazon – yet more proof that I’m a baby boomer and not a millennial.  Stored in a couple of computers and on an external hard drive, my music collection is now approaching 5000 songs.  I don’t know what that means in comparison to other music lovers, but I still enjoy perusing the eMusic catalogue once a week or so searching for treasured songs from the past and new musicians that keep my musical chops from growing stale.  There’s nothing more rewarding than discovering a new band or soloist who is just getting started – then sharing their music with friends and family long before they are “discovered.”

But I do have one observation about my MP3 player that I like – but is equally disturbing as well.  Somehow, it knows my moods.  Okay, I know how crazy that sounds, but consider how your phone disturbs you with pop-ups of items that you are thinking about buying – or events that you are planning on attending.  Most of that has to do with analytics and tracking employed by those search engines, but is there some other AI technology at play here, a modern day mood ring?  And yes, before you start to wonder about my sanity, I do understand that those mood rings popular in my youth were merely quartz stones hollowed out and filled with a thermochromic element that reacted to the temperature of its wearer.  In what was actually an unintended health craze, my happening friends were strutting around with thermometers on their fingers or around their necks!

But back to my creepy MP3 player.  Whether I’m tooling around on my tractor trying to keep up with my lawn’s daily growth or driving to a Columbus area golf course for a round with my friends, my MP3 player somehow knows what I want to hear.  If I’m melancholy, I typically hear strains of Jackson Browne, the Indigo Girls, Bob Schneider, Lyle Lovett, or Steely Dan.  If I’m in a frisky frame of mind, I might hear the Sex Pistols, Cigar Store Indians, Steve Earle, or the Ramones.  If I’m experiencing a touch of consternation or frustration, my MP3 might provide Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” and follow — or contradict — it with a cover of “Hurdy Gurdy Man” by the Butthole Surfers — just to help alleviate and lighten my mood. And don’t get me wrong; I like that my creepy MP3 player gets me, that it knows “instinctively” what music fits me at any given time.

One story in particular may change your thoughts about my little theory here.  The death of singer-songwriter Glen Campbell impacted me more than I would have ever predicted.  I had enjoyed him and his music for many decades, a love passed on from Mom to son. My family never missed an episode of his variety show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (which aired in the late sixties through early seventies), and we owned several albums and 45s. I’m sure the fact that he died from Alzheimer’s, like my mother was in the process of doing, had something to do with it – and perhaps because I had given him my autograph once (a cute little story where the seven-year-old version of me asked him if he wanted my autograph after a performance at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee).  But frankly, I hadn’t really listened to his music in a number of years, and though I had a few songs embedded in my music files (and MP3 player), neither “Galveston” nor “Wichita Lineman” ever made a daily playlist.  But a couple of days after his death in August of 2017, I was cutting grass when a live version of “Highwayman” filled my budded ears.  Stunned, I had completely forgotten that this song (my favorite of his) was even on my MP3 player.  A few minutes later, “Gentle on My Mind” started playing, and my long-time suspicion about the MP3 player was confirmed.

If you are a music lover and maintain a catalogue of songs on your phone or computer (or MP3 player like me), pay some attention when you are tuning in.  Are your emotions being mirrored by songs coming from your chosen playing device?  Your random playlist may not be as random as you think.  Perhaps on a psychic level, you and I are emanating emotional vibes on a wavelength that is synced with our digital devices.  No matter what, I’d like to think that all of this is mere coincidence (and I’m sure it is) — or maybe it’s a just a happy glitch in the Matrix.  Either way, it does make living on this planet way more interesting!