Popular music is subject to interpretation. Heck, you could use lyrics and album art to find clues that Paul McCartney is dead and Elvis Presley is alive.

And somehow, without my knowledge, apparently one of my Collarworld chapters has found interpretations far beyond what I could ever imagine.

Background.

A few weeks ago, I wrote the latest chapter in my Collarworld series about the afterlife waystation where pets wait until they are reunited with their masters. The episode was called “The Rainy Barn,” and it chronicled one of the main protagonists, Vincent the king orange tabbycat, as he addressed a new arrival of animal-hoarder-owned kittens. It was one of my most emotional chapters in the Collarworld series, and it was written in response to the recent rescue of dozens of hoarded kittens.

This morning, as I checked my blogging stat-metrics program, I discovered – much to my surprise – that the Collarworld chapter “The Rainy Barn” had spiked in terms of page views and unique visitors. Normally that means one of two things – someone linked the page to a spam-generating website, or it got picked up by someone who loved the story and wanted to share it with everybody they knew.

Well, the latter happened. And boy what a surprise this is.

Apparently a fan of the popular band Phish read “The Rainy Barn” and found several allusions and references to Phish songs and Phish bandmembers in the story, as well as to an October 31, 2014 Las Vegas concert. And this person shared his observations with his friends on a Phish message board.

I’m not kidding. This person, along with his fellow message boarders, found references in “The Rainy Barn” to certain Phish songs. Example?

Vincent asks the hoarded kittens, “How many of you were rescued by the humans in the white suits?”

Apparently this is what Phish wore at the concert in Las Vegas. Yep… white suits.

In another part of my story, Vincent tells the kittens, “I wanted to rescue my brothers and sisters. I left the barn, I saw a farmhouse in the distance. I went as far as I could.”

Apparently “My Sisters and Brothers” is a song by the Jerry Garcia Band, while Phish has a song called “Farmhouse.”

And it gets more mind-blowing. Somehow, in this interpretation, the Royal Order of Ancient Carissima Hamsters, who in the Collarworld stories are three heralds to St. Francis of Assisi, are actually members of the band Phish. Yep, apparently Cupcake is keyboardist Page McConnell, Truffle is drummer Jon Fishman, and Bacardi is bassist Mike Gordon.

And Vincent, the king orange tabbycat?

Well, apparently there’s a member of Phish that’s also a king orange tabbycat of sorts – lead singer / guitarist Trey Anastasio.

Well now…

Apparently the original poster to the message board must have also read my previous post on how Phish’s song “Contact” shares a melody with that tween-pop one hit wonder Megan Trainor’s “All About That Bass.” And of course, through synchronicity and coincidence and sequential thought, somehow my Collarworld chapter may have been interpreted as a fictional recreation of Phish’s 2014 Halloween concert – held on the very same day of my blog post.

Whoa.

Trust me.. I’m good, but I’m not THAT good. I couldn’t name three Phish songs without running to Wikipedia and YouTube to identify them. And as for Vincent… this blog post should explain where Vincent came from.

But you know what? I’ve never had my fiction interpreted by someone else like this. And it’s kinda fascinating. I’ve got people reading my Collarworld chapter and looking for references and allusions to Phish culture and jamband lore. I’ve got people dissecting my sentences as if there are hidden messages and secret code.

Heck, maybe the next time I introduce a pet in a Collarworld story, I should name that new animal moe. – yeah, I bet nobody would see THAT coming. :)