I have roughly 750 songs on my iPhone at the moment, selected at random from a pool of over seven thousand files in my library. As I listened to the music on my iPhone this evening, the playlist came to Gogol Bordello’s “Avenue B” — the earlier recording from East Infection. This was followed by the Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike version. Interesting, I thought — though not an uncommon occurrence.

Next, Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man” from Highway 61 Revisited. What followed? The same, from Before the Flood. As I considered the odds of two repeating versions of two different songs, I’m hit with the live performance included on Bootleg Series Vol. 7.

Uninspired music library — highly intelligent algorithm — random chance?