BURLINGTON, Vt. — Patrons at a local coffee shop reportedly became infatuated with one another after Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” played over the shop speakers, sources confirmed.
“My coworker Brian is absolutely obsessed with some Spotify playlist called Gentle Indie Glow,” said Sarah McDougal, barista at The Bean and The Grind. “Every so often, ‘Fade Into You’ plays, and without fail, everyone in the shop falls hopelessly in love. I tried telling Brian to cut it out with the playlist, and, by the way, to stop using Spotify since they happily run ICE recruitment ads, but he just won’t quit. He claims the playlist makes him feel safe at work and that no other streaming service has a comparable playlist, which is complete bullshit. I’ve resorted to wearing earplugs while working. So far, so good. I haven’t briefly fallen in love in three weeks.”
Local college student Roger Whitman, a regular at the shop, confirmed that he fell deeply in love with everyone there.
“When that song started, it was as if every soul, every being, became a single, radiant heartbeat,” said Whitman, half erect, trembling with awe, tears streaming down his face. “In that moment, I was completely in love with everyone here—from the older gentleman reading the New York Times in the corner to the woman tapping furiously on her MacBook across from me. But it wasn’t just them. I realized that everything, all things, are love. The boundaries between myself and everything else dissolved into the infinite hum of being itself. It was both a fleeting, ecstatic vision and somehow perfectly ordinary, always accessible, like a secret loudly whispered for all eternity.”
Riley Parker, a music psychologist at the University of Vermont, says songs like “Fade Into You” can activate latent collective limerence, likening it to a “sonic pheromone.”
“Music has the power to do incredible things, and let me tell you, this song is one of the most powerful out there,” said Parker. “In fact, the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer almost didn’t happen. ‘Fade Into You,’ which had been released just the previous September, was accidentally played over the loudspeakers in the Olympic village, and witnesses reported mass swooning, spontaneous kissing, and what can only be described as an outbreak of ephemeral, otherworldly love. Security barely managed to restart the curling matches.”
At press time, the love spell cast on the coffee shop was broken when the playlist was changed and Puddle of Mudd’s “She Hates Me” began playing.
