I won’t say that this is Synchronicity, but consider this.

It was last week when I got from the library all the Kraftwerk that they had: The Man-Machine”, “Trans-Europe Express” and “Tour De France Soundtracks”. I was looking for “Computer World” based on some tracks I heard on Mixcloud that sent me back to thinking about when my friend Dave was obsessed with these guys. Not because he was into German electronic music, but because he loved everything computer related. He was the guy who had an early Sinclair (?) that he used to input huge strings of binary into from the back of a computer magazine to produce a program that would sort 5 random words into alphabetical order. Big stuff back in the day.

I was also looking for “Autobahn”, which unfortunately the library did not have.

Fast forward to this week and Cindy and I are driving and what do I hear come on the radio?

Some fun facts to flesh out this event.

First of all, 98.1 WMGN, otherwise known as Magic 98 is not a big risk taking station. It has its place in the Madison music scene, but Adult Contemporary is their thing. Known by another term… oldies. They are the ones to bring you Saturday At The 70’s.

So “Kraftwerk – Autobahn” WAS released in the 1974, but nothing I would have EVER expected 98.1 to be spinning. I literally have never heard any Kraftwerk on any commercial radio station, ever, until now. Furthermore, the track is almost 23 minutes long.

So to hear this song on 98.1 was like listening to the heavy metal station and hearing Ann Murray in between Slipknot and Slayer. It just didn’t fit. It’s a great and groundbreaking album, but… huh?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn_(album)

Ah… turns out there was a radio edit of the song and surprisingly it reached # 25 on the U. S. Billboard charts. Not a mean feat for a song that tried to replicate the sounds of travel on a German highway.

So, Synchronicity or not, I thought it worthy of noting here.

Ok, it WAS Synchronicity.

There, I said it.