This is the story of internet sleuth done right. It is funny when the X-Files, a television series that solves mysteries upon mysteries in each episode, yet yields a little bit of something for us to solve. This story started when Lauren Ancona sent a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) describing how she heard a country song during the episode ‘Dreamland II’ playing in the background in a bar scene. Like the rest of us, she tried to find the song on Shazam to no avail. Not giving up, she looked up the lyric and found multiple Reddit posts where fans had been trying to crack the mystery surrounding the song since 1998.
Then she went to search for “S6E5 Dreamland II” and what she found made her come to the conclusion that she was not the only one who was intrigued by it. There’s a featured review on the IMDB page where a user described the scene and the lyrics. “Please help me find the song. Considered by all who watch it to be a hidden Gem”, said the user.
Arcona’s thread on X gained millions of traction and X users started to do what they do best i.e. investigate. One X user commented, “Intriguing. It’d be super cool if the band responsible saw some of the many discussions and felt like solving the mystery”. This user, then, provided a YouTube link which you can watch below:
Upon suggestion by a different X user, Lauren looked at the credit scene where she found the name of the music editor, Jeff Charbonneau. Seeing the long list of TV episodes and shows Jeff had done in the past, Lauren asked X users if anybody knew him but to no avail.
Then the mystery was finally solved. How?
An X user found the cue sheet for the episode. The cue sheet showed the title of the song. From there, it didn’t take long for fans to dig up and find the songwriters.
The short and simple song was called “Staring at the Stars” and it was written by Glenn Jordan and Marfisi. The singer was Jordan, himself. And as expected by many internet users, the song was written and produced specifically for that show. That is why Shazam could not find it! Marfisi replied on X, “Our directive was ‘we need a country song that could be about an alien or a human … oh, and we need it in four hours”. Yes. The song was written in 4 hours!
Marfisi added, “Hi all of you wonderful & kind people. I now have the song and will hopefully post it in the next day or so. We’re still deciding how to do it. Again, this is a rare experience and you’ve really made the two of us feel fantastic. THANK YOU!”
According to Marfisi’s website (joneshouseband.com), the song is scheduled to be dropped on Friday, 7th of December. I went to the website today and couldn’t find it. Is this another mystery?
