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How Does the Radio Know the Song Playing in My Head Right Now?
On music, synchronicity, the uncanny, and connection
“When you know the song, you sing along!” sang the announcer on 98.1 WOGL FM in an ad for the radio station this morning.
I smiled. The message was cheesy, but true.
We do often sing along when we know the song. Sometimes, though, we quickly switch the station when we hear too familiar a tune. Sometimes, in fact, we can’t sing along. So struck by nostalgia in some moments listening to music, all we can do is drift off to another time and place.
Then there are the times, more of them lately, when we hear a song we know, pause in a kind of shock, and urgently pull over the car.
How did that happen and will I have time to catch it on video??
Yes, there are those occasions when we hear a song on the car radio, in a Starbucks, or over the loudspeakers in an outdoor shopping mall and we are struck speechless by coincidence.
In such moments, there is nothing we can do but wonder, how?
How did the radio know to play this song?
This particular time, I pulled over to the side of the road in order to record the song playing so I could…
