# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/21 "2015-03-22T16:58:01Z")
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks. I can easily imagine looking down from a tower block of flats on to rows of back to back terrace houses, smokey chimneys, sounds of train clickety clacking I the distance probably some time in early April - its been a nice spring day and its cooling down - the scene looking something like a High Definition version of a Monet painting ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Bragg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4bbf92/32.png) [@Stealth\_Bragg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Bragg)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/22 "2015-03-23T11:43:20Z")
> [@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. Wouldn’t that be “Night Owl” also by Gerry Rafferty…? ---
**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 23, 2015, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/23 "2015-03-23T12:49:22Z")
No, since I don’t know that song. But I’ll check it out, thanks. ---
**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 23, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/24 "2015-03-23T15:30:10Z")
Forgot to mention Pink Floyd’s song “Echoes”, from the album Meddle. When I listen to that song, it’s like one long hallucination of swimming in the middle of the ocean, deep below the surface. There are, or may be, other creatures in that deep dark water, but it’s not at all frightening. I belong there. Hmmm, I’ve noticed something…all the songs I would describe as evocative (Echoes, Boys of Summer, Cool Change, Sailing) have to do with water. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/25 "2015-03-23T17:46:59Z")
I was just revisiting “For the Roses” (Joni Mitchell) for the first time in quite awhile and I was instantly 13 years old again and feeling all the angst that goes with that. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/26 "2015-03-23T18:11:17Z")
> [@K364](#): > > [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 That was going to be my contribution too: > [@](#): > > She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running > Like a watercolor in the rain It’s a remarkable song and I instantly replay my own subconscious video every time I hear it. A lot of songs also mentioned evoke mental images for me in the same manner. Robbie Robertson’s “Somewhere Down the Crazy River,” like “Year of the Cat” just paints itself. > [@](#): > > I followed the sound of a jukebox coming from a levee > All of a sudden I could hear somebody whistling from right behind me > I turned around and she said > “Why do you always end up down at Nick’s Cafe?” A lot of Beach Boys songs, like “All Summer Long” too. > [@](#): > > Sittin’ in my car outside your house… > > T-shirts, cut-offs, and a pair of thongs… > > Miniature golf and Hondas in the hills… Man, I can smell summer. Another one is Bob Seger’s “Night Moves.” > [@](#): > > I awoke last night to the sound of thunder > How far off I sat and wondered > Started humming a song from 1962 > Ain’t it funny how the night moves > When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose > Strange how the night moves > With autumn closing in I have the same mental image of laying in bed listening to a thunder storm every time I hear this song. ---
**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 23, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/27 "2015-03-23T19:53:06Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > 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. I think you make a good point. It also might be partly because when you’re younger you simply have more time to listen and ponder. Also also, you may not fully understand the lyrics and so might let the music and whatever your understanding of the words might be color your interpretation. I’m having a hard time coming up with anything in the last ten years that qualifies as the kind of thing I’m talking about. There are plenty of songs that I like and that touch me, but not quite what I mean. Off the top of my head, the most recent thing I can come up with Shawn Colvin’s _Sunny Came Home_, and that’s from 1996! Holy cow, that song just gives me chills. I know the lyrics add a lot and they, combined with the mandolin (I think it’s a mandolin)are so effective at portraying the tragedy of it. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/28 "2015-03-23T19:57:24Z")
Joan Osborne, “Right Hand Man”: _Let me use your toothbrush Have you got a clean shirt? My panties are in a wad At the bottom of my purse I walk into the street The air’s so cool I’m wired and I’m tired And I’m grinnin’ like a fool_ Yeah, pretty evocative. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/29 "2015-03-23T20:13:33Z")
Since there’s been some discussion of how, um, dated most of the songs are that we’ve come up with, here’s something more recent\*: “Stolen Dance” by Milky Chance. _I want you We can bring it on the floor Never danced like this before We don’t talk about it Dancing on, do the boogie all night long Stoned in paradise Shouldn’t talk about it_ I can just feel the heat and desire in the dancing. \*Wikipedia says it was released two years ago, but I’ve only heard in in the past few months. But it’s at least from this decade. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/30 "2015-03-23T20:20:03Z")
[Copperhead Road](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhMO9azmKNU) makes me want to go fight The Man. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/31 "2015-03-23T20:50:59Z")
Well, this one may be pretty obvious, but “Riders on the Storm” by the Doors makes me think of driving down a dark midnight road in the rain. There are a lot of old instrumentals that produce images for me (as they are intended to do). Like “Theme from the Magnificent Seven” always makes me feel like I’m somewhere in the high plains, with a big sky overhead. And “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” makes me feel like I’m in the South Pacific. And [“Soul Coaxing”](http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=soul+coaxing+youtube&FORM=VIRE3#view=detail&mid=9B53778C5B6FC3CEEC1A9B53778C5B6FC3CEEC1A) (“Ame Caline”) makes me feel like… I don’t know, being on a mountaintop at sunset, with a fresh wind in my face and the stars just coming out. ---
**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 24, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/32 "2015-03-24T02:42:36Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Joan Osborne, “Right Hand Man”: > > _Let me use your toothbrush > Have you got a clean shirt? > My panties are in a wad > At the bottom of my purse > I walk into the street > The air’s so cool > I’m wired and I’m tired > And I’m grinnin’ like a fool_ > > Yeah, pretty evocative. Thank you for remidning me of this song. Though not “evocative” for \*me \*in the spirit in which I started the thread, I’ve always dug this, as well as her better known hit “One of Us”. My instant mental picture takes place in New York. For the most part, everything I picture taking place in NY is gray, so in my mind the picture is almost monochromatic. The view is first person, walking down many flights of stair of a walk-up , sort of rundown apartment building on a weekday morning. It’s no “walk of shame”; just another day. and she (I) have a big black handbag. When the line “panties in my purse” is sung, I picture a kind of _Schindler’s List_ style shot of full-color lacy pink panties crumbled at the bottom of the bag. ---
**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 24, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/33 "2015-03-24T03:02:08Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Since there’s been some discussion of how, um, dated most of the songs are that we’ve come up with, here’s something more recent\*: “Stolen Dance” by Milky Chance. > > _I want you > We can bring it on the floor > Never danced like this before > We don’t talk about it > Dancing on, do the boogie all night long > Stoned in paradise > Shouldn’t talk about it_ > > I can just feel the heat and desire in the dancing. > > \*Wikipedia says it was released two years ago, but I’ve only heard in in the past few months. But it’s at least from this decade. . Another good one that, while doesn’t necessarliy “effect” me, is a pretty stand out song that definitely put an image in my mind. Not knowing anything about “Milkey Chance” when I first heard it, I pictured the artists from somewhere in the U.S. south (probably due to the slighty “hoedowny” flavor of the song). I saw rough wood floors and maybe a quartet of guys jamming off to the side. They’re not full-on hillbillies, but sort of rural dudes that are musicians that know how to jam and also don’t really care if they get famous, but are almost doing it for a goof; their priority is their farm life but they do have a sense that they could make it in the music industry if they really tried. They’re just playing a local gig. Imagine my surprise when I saw them on VH1, and they turn out to be three young Germans! ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/34 "2015-03-24T14:34:56Z")
Lookin’ for Love by Johnny Lee Makes me think of John Travolta in a cowboy hat. And Eddy Murphy. 😃 ---
**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 24, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/35 "2015-03-24T14:59:22Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Lookin’ for Love by Johnny Lee > > Makes me think of John Travolta in a cowboy hat. And Eddy Murphy. 😃 I’ll take that as a compliment 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/36 "2015-03-24T16:27:41Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Thank you for remidning me of this song. Though not “evocative” for \*me \*in the spirit in which I started the thread, I’ve always dug this, as well as her better known hit “One of Us”. > > My instant mental picture takes place in New York. For the most part, everything I picture taking place in NY is gray, so in my mind the picture is almost monochromatic. > The view is first person, walking down many flights of stair of a walk-up , sort of rundown apartment building on a weekday morning. It’s no “walk of shame”; just another day. and she (I) have a big black handbag. When the line “panties in my purse” is sung, I picture a kind of _Schindler’s List_ style shot of full-color lacy pink panties crumbled at the bottom of the bag. I get two images from it: the first, in his apartment (“let me use your toothbrush, have you got a clean shirt?”) and the second, on the street as she’s walking home, _sans_ underwear, wearing his shirt, hair still a little mussed, with a big ‘just fucked’ grin, giving off the vibe of a great and totally unanticipated night of sex, and not caring who sees it. A lot of people are rather down on Osborne, but I wonder if they’ve heard this one. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/37 "2015-03-24T17:16:05Z")
[“More Than This” by Roxy Music](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0CCAQyCkwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DkOnde5c7OG8&ei=uJoRVdqUNcqHyATmq4CoCA&usg=AFQjCNHxUnfmmhL1iuqwsykUwVb-wyvuBw&sig2=dN5M5eSU46n25XzFtALU5Q&bvm=bv.89184060,d.cWc)– a lovely melancholy song that just makes me feel that the narrator is looking back (at a relationship? his whole life?) and refusing to feel bad that there isn’t anything bigger out there. This isn’t the official interpretation of course, just mine. And I second “Year of the Cat”, “Under the Milky Way”, and “Boys of Summer” (though I prefer the remake by The Ataris). ---
**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 25, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/38 "2015-03-25T03:09:16Z")
[QUOTE=GrumpyBunny] … and “Boys of Summer” (though I prefer the remake by The Ataris). [/QUOTE] Interesting. The Ataris version is okayish until “I saw a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac”. That always takes me right out of the song, and I think “riiiiiiight; and you young wannabe punks actually know who Black Flag is”. Not saying it’s rational or fact based, but that’s what I’ve always thought since the first time I heard it. ---
**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 25, 2015, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/39 "2015-03-25T09:54:40Z")
Do instrumentals count? Because I have a very strong and relatively unpleasant reaction to this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ROYu\_ELpxs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ROYu_ELpxs) As soon as it starts, I’m a very small kid in a reception hall in the middle of nowhere on some weird-ass day (say, Tuesday). It’s the middle of the afternoon or early in the evening (not dark yet) and I’m feeling kind of lost between all the adults who pay no attention to the few kids that are present. The crowd is not exactly distinguished either, lets say the local equivalent of rednecks. Strong lights, sound of glasses clinking. I’m getting tired, perhaps slightly ill and want to go home but I know that we’re not leaving soon and it’s a long way home (for a kid anyway). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529/40 "2015-03-25T10:00:56Z")
So many I could probably mention but one or two of the top of my head: in **Tunnel of Love** by Dire Straits, the line “Like the Spanish City to me, when we were kids”. It refers to a permanent fun fair, the line evokes one of those intense evenings in early summer with the sun going down around 9pm, the smell of burgers and onions, and intense glazy-eyed teenage passions. **Eight Days a Week** by The Beatles - the fade in, the enthusiasm of the singing, the harmonies of the chorus, for me it always evoked Britain in the mid 1960s more than any other Beatles song. In particular, for some reason it makes me think of offices and how that time was the high water mark of analogue office technology. Even though I wasn’t born until a few years later there’s something about 1965 which seems so innocent and optimistic. I thought all of this for years and then came _Mad Men_ to confirm it all. There’s a scene at the first board meeting of 1965 where Joan says something like “Gentlemen, let’s begin 1965” - they don’t do that for any other year. **If I Needed Someone** by The Beatles - the jangly guitar bits that both follow and accompany the harmonies evoke an image of sunlit uplands - endless rolling grassy hills with angled sunshine. The same sunlit uplands are evoked by the line “grassland away” on **Sheep** by Pink Floyd. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evocative-songs-and-the-feelings-they-um-evoke/715529.md?page=3)