(February 5, 2025). Imagine every time you get into your 15-year-old car — one that’s devoid of any recent technology, like CarPlay — and plug your phone into its USB port, and the first song you hear has been the same one, day after day, month after month, year after year.
That song, Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra,” comes first alphabetically on my iTunes playlist, and so it’s the first song the car’s stereo belts out faster than I can shift the car from park to drive, or switch the phone’s audio source to something other than its default iTunes app. Sometimes I let the 43-year-old song play through. Other times, I skip to the next one — Brick’s “Ain’t Gonna Hurt Nobody” — or frantically tap at my phone, trying to wrestle control away from iTunes before those 1982 synths fully kick in. This dilemma was my version of Vampire Weekend’s “A-Punk,” which famously plagued iTunes users for years with this sort of alphabetical tyranny.
It’s not like I don’t like SMB’s “Abracadabra,” I love it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been on my iTunes library to begin with. But it’s like a Groundhog’s Day from hell getting in the car and it being the first thing you hear… every time! Sure I could figure out a way to randomize the playlist so that it does something other than an alphabetical regurgitation of the hundreds of songs in my iTunes library, but even when I’ve succeeded in doing that, it somehow reverts back to that default alpha order, and Steve Miller’s No. 1 synth-rock tune takes me back to the summer of 1982 all over again. I’m sure there’s been some form of user error involved, but I certainly haven’t figured that out yet.
Well, finally, a song worthy enough — to me, at least — of an iTunes download has come along to solve this problem. I first heard the tune on Sunday (Feb. 2) during the Grammy Awards telecast. It was introduced as the new single from Lady Gaga’s upcoming album, Mayhem. It was, in a word, magical. It was also called “Abracadabra” and, more importantly, I loved it!
This “Abracadabra” is vintage Lady Gaga with seemingly nonsense lyrics (“Abracadabra, amor, ooh-na-na; Abracadabra, morta, ooh-ga-ga”) that somehow make sense with the song’s “love or death” theme. It’s industrial-sounding Gaga á la her early “Bad Romance” days. And it’s just damn good, unlike anything I’ve heard — or paid attention to — from the multi-hyphenate superstar since, well 2013’s “Applause” (which is also on that iTunes playlist of mine, btw). Needless to say, I never particularly cared for her Oscar-winning “Shallow” from the most recent redo of A Star is Born, although I’m certain others will disagree. She’s had other big ones in recent years, too, like the recent No. 1 “Die With A Smile” with Bruno Mars, but it simply doesn’t compare to her early stuff like this new single does.
But here’s the real kicker: Gaga’s “Abracadabra,” I suddenly realized, was also a cheap solution to the years-long problem of having Steve Miller Band déjà vu every time I connected my phone to that USB port in the old beater car. For the cost of a digital download ($1.29), I could own a copy of Gaga’s new single, and it — not Miller’s tune — would now be the first one I’d hear when starting up the car with my Apple phone plugged in. You see, Lady Gaga comes before Steve Miller Band alphabetically, and that’s all my playlist needed was something other than me having to download Done Lack’s “Aardvark” or the DeFranco Family’s “Abra-Ca-Dabra” to replace Miller’s “Abracadabra” as the first tune I hear.
So, I made the purchase — my first iTunes download this decade — and now Gaga’s “Abracadabra” stands supreme as the first tune that plays when the car is started. Steve Miller’s 1982 hit now comes second.
Sure, logic says that I’ve just swapped one “Abracadabra” problem for another. But at least this one’s fresher — no grooves worn thin over 42 years, no overplayed déjà vu. At least not yet. Not until I’ve had it up to here with the “ooh-na-na’s” and “ooh-ga-ga’s.”
Then I may have to rethink that “Aardvark” song.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
You can also register for free (select the menu bars above) to receive notifications of future articles.