How I Used ChatGPT to Identify Two Songs I Heard Once — Over 30 Years Ago

Dejan S. Višekruna — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 22:30:26 +0000

A personal memory retrieval turned technical challenge — and how ChatGPT helped solve it.

🎯 The Challenge

I had been searching for two songs for decades. One was a dreamy eurobeat track, the other a dance cover with a female vocal.

I had no artist, no title, no recording — only a feeling, a rough memory of the beat, and the fact that I heard each one only once on the radio in Belgrade in the early ’90s.

🧠 Using ChatGPT as a Research Tool

Instead of asking “What song is this?”, I approached ChatGPT like a research assistant.

Here’s what I gave it:

Vocal style: Female
Era clues: One was from the late ’80s/early ’90s, the other from the mid-’90s
Beat style: One had a groove similar to Back to Life by Soul II Soul; the other leaned more toward eurobeat
Context: Both songs were aired only once on Belgrade radio stations during a time of severe UN sanctions
Data issue: One track was misidentified as “Three Times” due to a faulty RDS display
Memory anchor: I remembered a single chorus line from one of them

I turned that into a structured query — and then refined it through several iterations.

✅ The Result

After a series of narrowing-down steps, ChatGPT helped identify two songs I never expected to find:

“Dreamtime” – Zee (misread on radio as “Three Times”)
“Dream” – W.I.P. (a 1991 dance cover of “All I Have to Do Is Dream”)

🔍 Prompting Breakdown

- Structured inputs: genre, rhythm, era, vocal type, source context
- Prompt chaining: refining results based on emotional match and memory fragments
- Rejection criteria: wrong mood, wrong lyrics, wrong production style
- AI cross-referenced musical style, RDS errors, historical distribution

🤔 Why This Matters

LLMs aren’t just for coding, summarizing, or rewriting emails.

They can act as context engines — helping us reconnect with pieces of our lives that search engines left behind.

💬 Final Thoughts

This wasn’t just about finding songs. It was about proving how human memory + AI reasoning can solve a decades-old emotional puzzle.

And to write it using the very same ChatGPT that helped me find those songs in the first place — that was part of the closure.

Because this isn’t just my story. It’s a reminder that humans + AI can bring back something deeply personal — something even search engines forgot.

Ever used AI to find a lost piece of your past? Let me know in the comments.

AI-generated by ChatGPT for illustration purposes. No memories (or animals) were harmed during the making of this post.

Restoring the Freedom of Choice: Why I Decided to Bring Back the “Disable Visual Editor” Option in WordPress

Dejan S. Višekruna — Fri, 30 May 2025 17:28:59 +0000

As a developer who writes directly in HTML, I’ve always relied on a small but important setting in WordPress:
“Visual Editor: +/- Disable the visual editor when writing” in the user profile.

But in version 6.8, WordPress removed that option — without warning.

For me, this wasn’t just a small inconvenience. It was the loss of freedom of choice.

So I decided to fix that and bring it back as a plugin.

The Problem That Affects Many

Many developers, freelancers, and users who work with code are not fans of WYSIWYG editors. Not everyone is a “visual type.”

Additionally, there are times when you simply need to input HTML tags that aren’t well supported in a standard text editor.

The problem with the visual editor is that it can “clean up” the code. A small fix through the Edit Page/Post in the Dashboard — or, more often, accidentally opening the Visual tab — can wipe out all the HTML you worked so hard to write. And then, back to square one.

I’ve gone as far as preparing HTML-based content locally, then copy/pasting it directly into the database (wp_posts > post_content). I no longer even add new wp_post IDs through the Dashboard; I do it via SQL commands or my own upgraded legacy version of a previously banned mass page creation plugin.

And then I pack it all... Then someone (or I) opens the WP TinyMCE Editor — the Visual tab — and flushes the code.

In the old WordPress, all you needed to do was check the box “Disable the visual editor when writing” in your profile. Let the worst happen — the code stays.

But since version 6.8, WordPress no longer shows this option, even if the Classic Editor plugin is active. What was once a simple solution — is now completely removed from the interface.

The Solution I Made

This is where I created Classic Visual Editor Options.

The plugin does just one thing: restores that old, beloved option in the user profile.

No additional settings. No extra UI. No bloat.

Just that one checkbox.

✅ Works even if you use Block Editor
✅ Works even if you use Classic Editor
✅ Respects user settings (rich_editing meta)

I purposely kept it minimalist because sometimes, that’s exactly what’s needed.

Conclusion — It’s Not Nostalgia, It’s a Choice

This story isn’t about the past. It’s not even about one checkbox.

It’s about the fact that s*ome users still want control over how they write*. They want a work environment without visual “flavor.” They want to write in peace — just as they always have.

If you’re one of them — this plugin is for you.

🔗 Plugin Link: Classic Visual Editor Options

Feel free to leave a comment, suggestion, or question.
I’m open to feedback — and new solutions that respect the old things that worked.

Dejan S. Višekruna
WP developer and someone who still believes that — Code is Poetry.

DEV Community: Dejan S. Višekruna