# Evocative songs and the feelings they, um, evoke **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 20, 2015, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529 "2015-03-20T19:37:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/1 "2015-03-20T19:37:00Z")
Sorry, I couldn’t think of an eloquent title. I’m thinking of songs that bring an immediate, strong mental picture / emotional response. Not particularly the personal _memory_ the songs triggers, but rather what the sound and content of the song itself brings to your mind. I have a handful of songs that absolutely transport me each and every time I here them. [Sultans of Swing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX0Bhga_2vs) by Dire Straights [Baker Street](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsLrnylZheE) by Gerry Rafferty [Under the Milky Way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6jhpaX7fNQ) by The Church [Sunset Grill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvnMGgmaqtc&list=RDWvnMGgmaqtc) by Don Henley I’d be interested to hear what if any response these songs trigger in you and what other songs have a strong effect on you. Again, I’m trying to separate what the song itself conjures as opposed to say, what point in your life it was popular or what you were doing when you heard it. I mean of course you’re welcome to share whatever you’d like but I’m trying to see if certain songs paint a similar picture in different peoples’ mind. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/2 "2015-03-20T19:54:52Z")
“Ohio” - CSNY “Born in the USA” - Springsteen “Heard it Through the Grapevine” - Marvin Gaye ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/3 "2015-03-20T20:16:24Z")
> [@stillownedbysetters](#): > > “Ohio” - CSNY > “Born in the USA” - Springsteen > “Heard it Through the Grapevine” - Marvin Gaye Would you care to share what 'mental movie" plays in your head when you hear these songs? For instance, “Grapevine” makes me picture a backyard party in the evening, with dim lights. There’s black people dancing and one black man in particular with the typical 1970s disco silk shirt and white shoes is dancing in the spotlight. This may be a half memory of a video or performance that I saw that I’ve since forgotten about, but this is the image that I’ve always had and still have when I hear that song. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/4 "2015-03-20T20:28:01Z")
Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer”. Seagulls, beach sand, waves, sun…you can _hear_ it. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/5 "2015-03-20T20:32:44Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer”. Seagulls, beach sand, waves, sun…you can _hear_ it. Oh heck yes. Obviously the lyrics are part of it, but there’s a certain something about the music that is just perfectly suited. Like, I can almost get a faint whiff of suntan lotion. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/6 "2015-03-20T20:41:04Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > [Baker Street](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsLrnylZheE) by Gerry Rafferty Very early in the morning. The light has this blueish quality that you see just before sunrise. It’s a bit cold. A little bit rain, too. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/7 "2015-03-20T20:54:21Z")
> [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#): > > Very early in the morning. The light has this blueish quality that you see just before sunrise. It’s a bit cold. A little bit rain, too. Nice. In my head the intro is sort of a time lapse sunrise with pinks and reds. The first verse is a man in a white dress shirt, top button undone and sleeves rolled up. Walking down the sidewalk against the flow of foot traffic. The second verse I always picture as a woman. Late thirties to middle age. Visiting an friend that used to be a romantic interest but now they’re both too jaded. ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/8 "2015-03-20T21:09:33Z")
I’m afraid I don’t know the 3rd one you listed (or at least I don’t think I do) and while I’m familiar with “Baker Street” I wouldn’t say that it brings out any especially strong feelings in me. But “Sultans of Swing” is DEFINITELY one of my all-time faves and “Sunset Grill” - boy, I couldn’t get enough of that one back when it came out (I was working at a “grill” at the time so I made some kind of connection in my mind). ---
**Author:** ![Nema98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@Nema98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nema98)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/9 "2015-03-20T21:10:54Z")
Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf. A guy driving a convertible or motorcycle on a desert road, hair maybe blowing(if not wearing a helmet), either alone or with a hot woman back/beside him. ---
**Author:** ![Nema98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@Nema98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nema98)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/10 "2015-03-20T21:34:00Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Oh heck yes. Obviously the lyrics are part of it, but there’s a certain something about the music that is just perfectly suited. Like, I can almost get a faint whiff of suntan lotion. I see “Always Something There to Remind Me” by Naked Eyes in the same vein as “Boys of Summer” minus the beaches. Same image of a guy who goes by his former lover’s house and she is not there. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/11 "2015-03-20T23:01:09Z")
Dan Fogelberg’s [Same Old Lang Syne](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmVXYOJzAJM). I know exactly how it plays out. Narrator: bearded, mid-thirties, in an oxford, jeans, and a pea coat. Slightly weary shadow around his deep brown eyes. The ex-lover is also mid-thirties, pretty in a soccer-mom sort of way, in jeans and a down vest. Faint crow’s feet at the eyes, a few strands of gray in her straw-blonde hair. Reads A.S. Byatt and Margaret Atwood. She’s holding a package of frozen chicken breasts when he approaches her, and fumbles them when he says her name - “Kate?” - and touches her on the forearm. The whole thing happens in a strip mall in the northern Ohio town where I grew up, which had a grocery store, a bar, and a liquor store (all relevant to the song). At the end, during the sax solo, the camera pulls back and up to a long dolly shot showing her driving away in one direction while he turns up his collar and trudges off in the other. I could go on for paragraphs - I made a whole film of this song in my head back in 1980, when it came out. Others: [The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vST6hVRj2A). Gordon Lightfoot’s weary but haunting voice and the clear guitar lead paint a picture to me of rain, wind, waves and cold. The Little River Band’s [Cool Change](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKwRW0l-Qk) is very clearly a sailboat moving across the sea under a luminous full moon. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/12 "2015-03-20T23:01:33Z")
[Al Stewart - The Year Of The Cat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvBfIdhG974) On a morning from a Bogart movie In a country where they turn back time You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre Contemplating a crime ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/13 "2015-03-20T23:20:19Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Would you care to share what 'mental movie" plays in your head when you hear these songs? > > For instance, “Grapevine” makes me picture a backyard party in the evening, with dim lights. There’s black people dancing and one black man in particular with the typical 1970s disco silk shirt and white shoes is dancing in the spotlight. This may be a half memory of a video or performance that I saw that I’ve since forgotten about, but this is the image that I’ve always had and still have when I hear that song. My “Grapevine” is very close to yours. I picture the same type of guy, standing outside a nightclub where he has just heard all the rumors about his girl. She’s going to be there later and he’s musing in his mind what he’s going to say to her when she arrives, framing his words in rhythm with the music coming out of the club. “Ohio” of course is all the tv and radio coverage of the Kent State shootings, the first time my mind realized that the powers that be would shoot American CHILDREN for expressing dissenting opinions. The song is all about the shock, grief, and ultimate realization. The Viet Nam soldiers, conscripted or otherwise, came back to a government that didn’t care, industry that didn’t have jobs for them, full of issues no one was willing to acknowledge, much the less help. They were bitter and sad and injured mentally and emotionally, and the pride of country that was fed to them as they were shipped off to Nam got twisted. “Born in the USA” makes me see those vets’ experience of coming home very clearly. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/14 "2015-03-21T00:18:32Z")
Led Zeppelin - Kashmir The music is intense, insistant, and seems to be building and building toward something great. It’s like sex to me. Is it hot in here? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/15 "2015-03-21T01:41:05Z")
Ohmagosh, everyone’s responses are _awesome!_ This is kind of a pet subject for me and I never seem to meet people IRL that know what I’m talking about. I hope this thread doesn’t sink over the weekend because I’m am really digging the input. Another one for me is the Stones’ _Gimme Shelter_. Being born in '66, this song has been in the background since the time I could form memories. As a child, I could sense the darkness and desperation; it was both gorgeous and at the same time really depressing. Obviously I had no knowldege of drugs, yet it brought to my young mind teens on the street, at night, in the pouring rain with nowhere to go. There was a mixture of paisley and silver rain; people in bandanas; wet street corners. Only as an adult did I learn that the song is Vietnam related, but I still get the same image in my head when I hear it. I’m not even really old enough for the song to have the intended meaning, yet it really hits me in the gut any time I hear it. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/16 "2015-03-21T02:31:18Z")
By the by- sorry for the consecutive posts - but I’m hoping people will respond and give feedback to one another. I feel like I could respond to \*everything \*that’s been posted, but I don’t want to hog the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/17 "2015-03-21T03:21:05Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > By the by- sorry for the consecutive posts - but I’m hoping people will respond and give feedback to one another. I feel like I could respond to \*everything \*that’s been posted, but I don’t want to hog the thread. It’s your thread. Go for it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/18 "2015-03-21T14:37:36Z")
I note that most of the songs so far posted are from the 70’s. Perhaps songwriters of the time were especially gifted at writing evocative songs, but I suspect it’s due to the fact that most of us posting were children or young adults back then. The music of your childhood stays with you. I listen to, and like, a lot of more recent music, but few modern songs conjure up the same depths of emotion in me. If I had grown up in the 90’s or 2000’s though, I would be posting about Live’s [Lightning Crashes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsJ4O-nSveg), Evanescence’s [My Immortal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5anLPw0Efmo), Delta Rae’s [Bottom Of The River](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bimam2j2gEg), and, well, pretty much the entire _Trinity Sessions_ album from Cowboy Junkies. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/19 "2015-03-21T14:58:31Z")
I ran out of time yesterday and didn’t do justice to the whole picture I have in my head when I hear _Baker Street_. So: "Very early in the morning. The light has this blueish quality that you see just before sunrise. It’s a bit cold. A little bit rain, too… … Cityscape. The streets are almost completely deserted but you can distinguish a few silhouettes here and there. A couple of cars passing by slowly, as if lost. Didn’t get enough sleep last night. Actually, barely slept at all. Heavy head, legs feel like they weigh 2 tons. The surroundings, although familiar, feel a bit off and weird." **Kate Bush** - _Wuthering Heights_ “Crazy woman who’s spent years alone in a secluded manor, roaming the halls and corridors at night. Muttering to herself about past events only she remembers (or is she making them up?). Ancient furniture, deep darkness everywhere save for a few patches of candlelight, few and far between.” ---
**Author:** ![Teach-me-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a4c791/32.png) [@Teach-me-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teach-me-not)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/20 "2015-03-22T05:20:10Z")
[**Pink Floyd’s _Time_**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_VjVqe3KJ0). The first time I heard the song, I didn’t think much of it. It was certainly a great song with quirky sounds and a fantastic guitar solo, much like many other PF songs, but I didn’t pay attention to its meaning or lyrics. Then one day I played a video with the lyrics, and wow, immediate shivers down the spine. > [@](#): > > Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town > Waiting for someone or something to show you the way. > > _snip_ > > And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. > No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. > > _snip_ > > The time is gone, the song is over, > Thought I’d something more to say. Even today, the song never fails to send me into a guilty and nervous post-mortem of the years past. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529.md?page=2)