Is there an age after which a song can't "become part of your soul" ?

Cafe Society
1

First, I’d like to point out that this isn’t another of these “new music sucks” rants.

In this thread, buddha_david wrote this :

Now, it may have been tongue-in-cheek, but it’s led me to think about the way music, feelings and memories work. And I realize he may be on to something, in my case anyway.

When I look back at my life, I realize that the songs I like can be roughly divided into three categories :

1 - A handful of songs that always have a huge emotional impact on me but that I can’t associate with a particular memory, for example, Baker Street, Song for Guy, Wuthering Heights and Porque te Vas. Do you notice what they have in common ? They were all released in the late 70s, specifically around 1978, at the time when I was probably just starting to pay attention to music (age 2-3). These are songs that do more than move me. Without fail, they conjure up vague but extremely powerful feelings in me, sometimes devastatingly so when I’m sad. It seems that they tap into something deep in my soul. They work as unexplainably as familiar smells, on an almost visceral level.

2 - Innumerable songs that came out between, say, 1980 and 1990. For most of these, I have a distinct memory of listening to them, perhaps not for the first time, but not long after they came out. Some are great, some definitely aren’t, but even the weakest ones have that nostalgia factor that allows me to still find them immensely enjoyable 30+ years later. These are the songs that make me yearn for the “good old days”. They are are tied to clear memories of childhood. Some examples would be Ashes to Ashes, Cambodia and Billie Jean.

3 - Songs that I discovered after my teenage years. Lots of good songs there, too but none that have the emotional impact of the previous ones. Part of it is probably due to some sort “been there, done that” phenomenon. The first time I heard an Am > Em chord progression was a “Whoa” moment. The 157th time, it’s more like “OK, cool. Next !”. But there’s more to it than that. Because I still occasionally hear songs that move me but none have this magical, mesmerizing effect that I tried to descibe above. They’re just “good songs”.

So, only songs from the first two groups could be described as “part of my soul”, which may indicate a cut-off point for the feeling. Do you experience something similar ?

2

I absolutely agree with your classification system. For me, I’d adjust it to acknowledge that, once in a while, a song with “category 2” level of emotional evocativeness penetrates the “category 3” time period. For example, I was married at age 36, yet there are a couple of songs released (and discovered by me) around that time which resonate deeply and nostalgically. Same with a few songs associated with my child, who was born when I was 40.

3

I’m 78 and new songs are still becoming part of my soul. I have traveled a lot, and I associate a lot of songs with places where I was the first time I heard them. I discovered Aster Aweke last year in Ethiopia, and some of her songs are now part of my soul.

4

True! Indeed, some of the most evocative songs for me involve a person AND a place. Some song will come on the radio or Pandora or whatever, and somehow I’ll recall fondly that I’d last heard, say, it six years ago while driving across a certain stretch of Arizona with my wife and child.

5

I don’t know if there’s a cut-off point or not. I’d like to think not. But the songs I consider “part of my soul” go much later than yours. I would say my 20s to early 30s is when I discovered the songs and music that most resonates with me (I’m almost 42 now.) Those are the ones that I feel most “part of my soul.”

I mean, sure, I have childhood songs that hold emotional meaning for me, as well, but if you had me name the most important songs in my life, they’re pretty much all post-teenage years.

6

I agree. I don’t think people really change their taste in music as they age. How many aging deadheads do you know who still only listen to the Grateful Dead? When I’m choosing tunes I like to choose things from the past that I really liked enjoying.

7

Clearly that high school era is critical. I am playing with a drummer for fun now and smiling goofily as we make our way through old Stones and Aerosmith songs.

But songs can still get me deeply now, it just happens less often. There are some that are mine, like different tracks by Thelonius Monk and guitarists Grant Green and Julian Lage. But many are due to shared experiences with my kids. My son and I have bonded over a shared love of TV on the Radio. And while I have always loved Etta James’ At Last, it didn’t become part of my soul until I heard my daughter singing along with it in her bathroom and just killing - brought a tear! :wink:

8

I think this is part of a much larger phenomenon. I’ve argued here that the people who are insanely passionate about the Lord of the Rings first read the book when they were young. The great majority of people who first read the book as adults may like it but never understand why it needs to be reread every year.

I’m sure you can add to that list television shows, art, video games, comedians, or most other forms of entertainment that first exposure creates a wow factor for.

9

I think in general, you are right, but with a lot of personal variability. For me, my tastes still have been changing, but did mostly solidify in my mid-to-late-20s. I think I’m a late bloomer, in that sense, as I don’t really revisit my high school music tastes all that much, except for the occasional Led Zeppelin album.

10

Relevant Aeon article from two days ago.

While I do have a goodly amount of “nostalgic” cuts, the album that blew me away the most, ever, was Fields of the Nephilim’s Elizium, when I heard it 3 years ago (age 52). Now, albeit, it was not recorded in 2014 (1990), but on that one score at least it’s a data point against the general thesis of the OP. To be fair, this album pretty much filled a pre-existing “hole” in my collection (for various reasons I will not get into here).

11

Cool topic. I just started thinking about this lately. I was discussing the new Kendrick Lamar album in another thread. Other posters were really getting deeply in to the album and I couldn’t share their enthusiasm. And I was a little concerned about how I couldn’t get in to an album that deeply anymore.

But, I have gotten in to albums deeply in the past few years. I also just turned 38 so I am drifting out of the specified zone!

One thing is for sure is that I’m no longer really moved by love songs or relationship songs. I’m most moved by songs with a social or political aspect to them. Any and all love songs that have importance to me are ones that I found in an era when I was actually dating.

Hmm…now I’m wondering if the songs/albums I’ve been *really *in to lately are more songs that I just *really *like and aren’t necessarily part of my soul. Like Pearl Jam songs are for me (when I was a teen).

12

In a perverse way I liked “Barbie Girl”, but it was waaay too late for it to become part of my soul. :frowning:

13

Perhaps it is because I am a musician and appreciate music on numerous levels, but new music continues to have deep meaning to me now at 60 in much the same way it did when I was a teen and young adult. I don’t find life anthems in lyrics the way I once did, but lyrics still speak to me just as poetry does. I love the feeling I get when I hear something ‘new’ and fresh. It can flood me with joy.

14

It seems to me that people kind of “freeze” their appreciation of music when they are done with their education, be it high school or college. You no longer hang out with the same pack of friends bobbing their heads to the latest tunes every day. You move on to jobs and family and they become the most important parts of your daily life and new music just falls by the wayside.

I find it hard to believe that anyone over 30ish feels like Patti Smith did when I heard her interviewed by Kid Leo on WMMS way back when. She had just heard some new song and said, “God, let me die right now, right now, God, so I can feel this way forever. But then I thought, you know, you know, the Stones’ new album comes out next week and I would miss that. So we’ll let it slide, God…this time.”

Not everyone, of course but a majority I would say. Maybe you keep up with your kids as they grow up, but after that, you’re done attaching importance to music, and even then, you’re rocking to ***their ***music, not the same at all.

I play Buzztime trivia a lot and I cannot answer any of the questions about singers and songs past 1990 (I’m 70).

Dennis

15

The odd thing for me is that I haven’t been to a concert in awhile where I’ve just felt that pure sense of rapture and not wanting the show to end. I looked it up, and I guess it actually wasn’t that long ago (I was 39 at the time, when Sleater-Kinney came through Chicago in early 2015. And there may have also been a New Pornographers show either that year or the year before where I had that musical “high.”) So I guess, not too bad, but the last few shows I attended I didn’t quite have that full investment in the music and it was worrying me a bit when I found myself just waiting for the encore so I could get out of there and go home. I know, just getting older, but I do miss that “high.” Maybe I just haven’t seen a good enough show in that time.

16

For me at least, part of the “problem” is that there’s so much new and old music nowadays, competing for space in my head and “soul.”

When I was a teenager, I had few enough albums, and getting new music was a big enough deal, that I’d play each one until I had it memorized.

17

On one hand, a lot of my favorite music is from the mid-1960’s. I was born in 1952, so that means that it’s mostly from my teen years. When anyone asks me who my favorite band is, I say it’s the Four Tops:

But if anyone asks me who my favorite singer is, I say Eva Cassidy, who I didn’t hear of until I was 48:

So it’s possible for someone to be impressed by songs heard long after one’s teen years.

18

I “discovered” Fountains of Wayne in my mid-50s and they became one of my favorite bands. I can practically play all of their albums in my head, so I guess you could say they’re part of my soul.

19

I was past fifty before I heard Adele. I connect strongly to her music.

Sara Bareilles music is timeless. She could be successful in any decade. Her album Live At the Fillmore is my favorite.

I still love music from my high school and college days. I also like a few present day artists.

20

That’s exactly what I was trying to say.

Above, I divided my favourite songs into three groups. Thinking about this further, I reckon that there are four characteristics that I look for in music : quality, emotion, nostalgia and that elusive feeling that I described in the OP. Let’s call it “wonder”.

Quality, I find both in old and new music. It can be described objectively (in tune, good sense of pulse, technical mastery of the instruments) but the most important defining elements verge towards the subjective : originality (Does it have its own voice ? Does it avoid clichés ?) and effectiveness (Do the melody and the harmonies work ?). So, I think that it’s possible to make a mostly unbiased, “strictly business” argument for or against a particular song in terms of quality.

Emotion refers to the emotional response that I have when I hear a piece of music. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be tied to a particular time or genre, but I must admit that, while I still hear new songs that move me, it’s something that happens less frequently and less intensely.

As a side note, I still experience it with classical music. I discovered Chopin’s Nocturnes, Brahms’ late works and most of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in my late 30s and I’ve had a very strong emotional response to these pieces ever since. Teary-eyed, sighing, the works…

Nostalgia works just as well for great songs and not-so-great ones, but there’s a time limit. If a song takes me back to my childhood or teenage years, to specific events, places or persons, then it’s almost garanteed that I’ll enjoy listening to it again. But if it came out after I was 16-18, it’s unlikely that nostalgia will be a factor in my appreciation, although quality and emotion will still apply. Perhaps it’s saying something about how I view the last 25 years of my life :D.

Wonder, as I called it, is the most mysterious, and perhaps what this whole thread boils down to. It has nothing to do with memory, at least not anything direct at all. If anything, it predates memories and may be the deep imprint that the very first songs I was aware of made on my mind. It has nothing to do with quality, either. Rather, it’s a feeling of awe that I’ve never recaptured since. There’s only a handful of songs that do that to me, which makes sense.

Thanks ! It really makes some excellent points including this one, which I had absolutely not considered before:

*"This is only compounded by another factor, and it’s something I’ve never seen or heard mentioned in any discussion of this topic. It has to do with the callowness (perceived and real) of musicians younger than ourselves. As something that by its very nature appeals to our emotions, music requires that we be emotionally engaged. This can be a very difficult thing to achieve on behalf of someone who hasn’t endured as much of the world as we have.

I’m talking here about music made by those who were younger than us when we first heard them. Anybody who listens to a Beatles song today is listening to a song made by someone in his 20s, but we don’t mind – we seldom even notice – because we were younger than that when we first heard the Beatles – or at least, we were younger than the living Beatles were then.

I’m not saying it makes sense, any more than emotions themselves make sense. But there’s no denying their validity. The best music achieves its effects by realising a bittersweet tension – a bit of melancholy touched with exuberance, or vice versa. This requires soul, and something resembling wisdom, and it requires the listener’s complicity, too. More than with any other art form, music requires that its consumer not just appreciate adroit execution but take ownership of a sensibility. I’m not saying it’s impossible with musicians younger than ourselves – it’s happened to me many times. But it’s certainly rare, because for the effect to work "*

He goes on to say this, which is almost exactly what I feel (I changed the ending so that it reflects my own thoughts more accurately) :

“I had been alive for only four (EDIT : five in my case) of the 1970s, and remembered none of them, but that didn’t matter; I embraced this sound as if it were my … own,”

The comments section is also well worth reading (e.g. Problem Child’s opinion).