No Such Thing As 'Totally Overanalyzed'

My usual approach to analyzing music in Supernatural episodes is summed up as "Driver picks the music" - all the music is about Dean in some way unless a) someone else is listening to the music in-scene or b) someone else is driving.

This caused me a bit of befuddlement when Dean was teaching Jack to drive in 14x07 - Dean was a passenger in Baby! Jack was driving! But Dean was the one who actively turned the music on. Which category does this fall into? So I thought about other occasions when Dean was interacting with someone else's music in-scene.

4x01: Dean objects to both Sam's music and the installation of the iPod jack in Baby while he was in hell. Terminated with prejudice.

8x14: Dean opens the door to Ellie's room, where she is playing the Divinyls and dancing while stroking a beer bottle. (Not too hard to figure out what might be going on here on a metaphorical level.) The first thing he does is turn off the music.

8x20: Charlie's fashion montage is set to "Walking On Sunshine." It's not obvious that the music is in-scene until Dean turns it off, at which point she finally comes back in an appropriate suit.

In all three of these cases, Dean is claiming ownership of the space and directing events towards his agenda - "shotgun" has had their cakehole forcibly shut; Dean is driving. When he then proceeds to do the opposite with Jack, it becomes a gesture of welcome. The message to Jack: You are allowed in this space; you are allowed control over this time (demonstrated further by going fishing instead of to the hookup joint).

It took years for Dean to respect Sam or Cas's agency to that extent. He's getting better at letting go, he's getting better at letting someone else drive... heck, Dean has just been so emotionally healthy about the things he's usually got problems with that I'm terrified about what might be lurking.