The Fabricator
The 2001 Train hit “Drops of Jupiter” is not wearing well for Bellevue’s Paul Wherry.
“I downloaded it around the time it was a hit, and when I got an iPod I just put in on there along with everything else,” he says.
But now he is less fond of the song, mainly because whenever he engages the iPod’s shuffle feature, the device unerringly plays “Drops of Jupiter” among the first few songs, despite having about 1,000 from which to select.
“I mean, what are the odds of that?” Wherry asks. “Like, 1,000 to one, and yet, I hit shuffle and there it is.”
Wherry says he knows he could delete the song from his computer, but says he somehow is unable to do so.
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“I paid for the song, and I just can’t bring myself to throw it away. There may be a time I like it again, but right now, I’m just sick of it. I’m sorry I ever put it on there.
“What does ‘Drops of Jupiter’ mean, anyway?” he continues. “A ‘man who’s too afraid to fly so he never did land’? What the fuck does that mean? This is messing with me bad.”
Musicologist Susan Polk of Belmont University says that the phenomenon of a song getting more irritating as time goes by even has a name in academic circles: the “Seasons in the Sun” effect, named after a rancid 1974 hit by Terry Jacks.
“That song was terrible when it came out, and it’s even worse now,” she says. “It’s corrosive to the soul. I don’t think that ‘Drops of Jupiter’ is in that league, because it’s an OK song—but I can’t imagine keeping it on an iPod if it keeps coming up.”
“I’ve just quit using shuffle mode,” Wherry says. “I tried calling Apple tech support to see if they could tell me why this kept happening, but while I was on hold they played ‘Drops of Jupiter’ and it just freaked me out.”
(The Fabricator is satire. Don’t believe everything you read.)