Songs won't show up black (they're gray) when ipod connected to iTunes

Question

When I used to connect my iPod to the computer, the songs would show up as black in the "My Device" section. Now, however, they're showing up as gray. So, where I used to be able to click on one of the songs within "My Device" to play that song, now I have to play it from the Library. I had to reset the iPod (it started showing garbled German...yeah, that's right, garbled German)and, ever since then, it's been doing the aforementioned black/gray thing.
I can use the iPod fine when it's not plugged into the computer, but I'm stumped about how--and why--it has changed. Thanks, kids.

Answer 1

Grey text when you look at the content and a lock symbol at the bottom of the screen just indicates that the iPod is set to sync automatically with iTunes. If you want to play the iPod songs through iTunes, delete songs from the iPod, drag songs from iTunes, add playlists to the iPod etc. you need to change the update setting to "manually manage songs and videos". The text will change from grey to black and everything will be directly accessible through iTunes:
Managing content manually on iPod and iPhone
Syncing Music to iPod
Something to remember about using an iPod in manual mode is that the "Do Not Disconnect" message will remain on the display until you physically eject the device: Safely Disconnect IPod