Here’s a fun little exercise you can do in iTunes:
- In iTunes, click on your music library in the sidebar.
- Turn on shuffle, ensure that you have “By Songs” selected in the Shuffle menu (which is in Controls in the main menu)
- Type the first word that comes to mind in the search box
- Play one of the songs that is displayed
- Pick a new word or name from the currently playing song, type that word into the search box
- Listen
- When song changes, repeat 5
Note that in step 5 that you must pick a word that will include the currently playing song or iTunes will get confused and stop playing after the song is over. Obviously, having a large music library (23847 songs for me) and lots of metadata helps make the game interesting.
If those directions aren’t clear, these are the songs from the most recent time I played this “game”:
- “Marching Theme” from On Avery Island by Neutral Milk Hotel
- “When the Saints Go Marching In” from Masters of Reality by Masters of Reality
- “Can’t Run But” from The Rhythm of the Saints by Paul Simon
- “Amity” from Reflections (Carly Simon’s Greatest Hits) by Carly Simon and Sally Taylor
- “Soldiers” from Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon by James Taylor
- “Ambulance Blues” from On The Beach by Neil Young
- “Redondo Beach” from Horses by Patti Smith
The search terms I typed in were “marching”, “Saints”, “Simon”, “Taylor”, “Blue”, “Beach”