Birdsong
Birdsong
[Cueball is walking and talking, while a bird, flying above him is singing, with four notes floating around it to indicate this. The notes are clearly above and removed from Cueball's text.] Cueball (singing): The sun is shining, the birds are singing—
[Cueball stops and looks up when the bird above him starts to sing using human language; four notes are floating around the text. The text of the bird's song is in italic text to indicate this.] Bird (singing): Got the kind of lovin' that can be so smooth, yeah
[Cueball looks down and black smoke emanates from the top of his head. The bird now flies above the panel but still sings in human language, four notes are floating below the text.] Bird (singing - off-panel): Give me your heart, make it real
[Cueball is chasing the bird with a butterfly net, the bird is flying away from Cueball, continuing to sing, four notes are floating around the text.] Bird (singing): Or else forget about it

The comic shows Cueball walking and singing along with the songbird singing above him; Cueball is apparently enjoying the perfect weather and the birdsong as he comments on both. In the next panel, the bird continues to sing but now it sings actual words (to the song " Smooth " ( official video ) by Santana featuring Rob Thomas ). This gives the word songbird a completely new meaning. The bird's singing begins to annoy Cueball, so he chases the bird with a butterfly net in an attempt to catch it. Meanwhile, the bird just continues with the song. (Interestingly, the two lines from the last two panels follow each other in the song, but Cueball manages to get hold of the net in between).
The lines the bird sings are (most) of the last three lines from the chorus (see the lyrics ):
The comic is a play on the words bird and song .  Songbirds, of course, don't actually sing: the sounds they make are territorial challenges, mating cries, etc. But in Western cultural traditions, particularly the pastoral one, imagining these sounds as 'song' is part of seeing nature as beautiful and harmonious. Ironically, the fact that this bird is really singing pop music is perceived by Cueball to be an intrusion.
In the title text Cueball suggest playing pastoral music to 'reprogram' the bird, which is of course an even more unnatural intervention - all with the purpose of restoring the pastoral naturalness of the bird. Of course, some birds can actually emulate human words , and in this way also sing real words, like with the common hill myna . Other birds can mimic any odd and unusual sounds, particularly the lyrebird of Australia is known to reproduce all types of sounds from chainsaws to barking dogs and certainly also music.
The title text of "reprogramming" the bird by placing it in a box also refers to B.F. Skinner and his development of programmed learning through his theories of operant conditioning and behaviorism in psychology. By famously using birds in so-called Skinner boxes , he conditioned birds to respond to certain stimuli and expect rewards for particular behaviors, leading to an understanding of many impulsive behaviors in humans like addiction. Cueball apparently hopes to "correct" the bird and its song through this method.
Animal conditioning was also referred to in 1156: Conditioning .
Lately Randall has had his characters catch several things (but never butterflies ) with a butterfly net; most recently in 1622: Henge , where it was the Sun that was caught in the net.
[Cueball is walking and talking, while a bird, flying above him is singing, with four notes floating around it to indicate this. The notes are clearly above and removed from Cueball's text.] Cueball (singing): The sun is shining, the birds are singing—
[Cueball stops and looks up when the bird above him starts to sing using human language; four notes are floating around the text. The text of the bird's song is in italic text to indicate this.] Bird (singing): Got the kind of lovin' that can be so smooth, yeah
[Cueball looks down and black smoke emanates from the top of his head. The bird now flies above the panel but still sings in human language, four notes are floating below the text.] Bird (singing - off-panel): Give me your heart, make it real
[Cueball is chasing the bird with a butterfly net, the bird is flying away from Cueball, continuing to sing, four notes are floating around the text.] Bird (singing): Or else forget about it
