I see there have been a handful of threads 20+ years ago that have sought to explain what about certain songs makes them sound ‘nostalgic’. I would submit that the nostalgia factor for a given song has less to do with the musical form than other considerations.
If someone asked me to compile a list of nostalgic songs, I would find that most of my picks would chronologically be songs that I heard a lot during the ages of 16 - 26. Music that was popular while coming of age. Generally, that includes songs that spent enough time on the charts that I had a number of weeks to repeatedly absorb them on the radio. Alternately, the same would apply if I had a recording of the song which allowed me comparable absorption time.
The other factor, I think that comes into play in determining the likelihood of a song being considered sentimental or not has to do with what events were going on in my life during the time when I first heard the song repeatedly. The song Don’t You Want Me by the Human League, for example doesn’t seem like it would evoke particularly strong emotional associations for many folks, but happens to be a very nostalgic song for me because the song was on the radio constantly while I was involved in my first serious relationship (and breakup).
I was still a virgin when the song Night Moves came out, which is basically a song about being nostalgic about your first time. For me it was more of a guidebook for how a first time should be and it did pretty much follow the same path for me. Drive-In making out, trusty woods and in the sweet summertime. So this ode to nostalga song became nostagic for me, like it was sent back in time to tell myself what was about to happen.
The first song that popped in my head when I saw the thread title was Baker Street, by Gerry Rafferty. I was eight when it came out, and it just sounds like “Fort Lauderdale in the seventies” to me. But I think that song has a purposefully nostalgic feel to it that works on everyone. Right?
For me there are two kinds of nostalgic songs; personal ones - like those that coincide with specific events in my life. And shared ones which are almost all associated with a film or TV show. I don’t even like Joan Baez, but play Rejoice in the Sun and I’ll cry like a baby.
Two months ago I came up with my top 10 nostalgic songs. It includes:
My first favorite song by my first favorite artist
My favorite song by my next favorite artist.
Song from my favorite movie.
Two songs that remind me of a particular girlfriend.
One that reminds me of another girlfriend.
The others are just songs that take me back to a particular part of my life.
Last night I was reminded of a song from nearly 50 years ago. I found it on YouTube. I was immediately taken back to the first room I lived in after I left home. I could feel the presence of the room, remember how innocent and simple everything seemed. It’s from the beautiful soundtrack to the movie “Friends” that I listened to all over and over. I’m amazed at all the memories it brings back. I need to find the movie now. Elton John - Friends - YouTube
There are about a dozen songs from the mid-Seventies that immediately remind me of the Ford Pinto I was riding in with the radio tuned to my Mom’s favorite station that just repeated the Top 40; “Silly Love Songs”, “Afternoon Delight”, “Let Your Love Flow”, “Dancing Queen”…
In 1982 I totaled that car on the freeway while listening to the Buzzcocks but their songs only make me think of old girlfriends.
At work back in 2011ish, people generally sort of took turns controlling the music because everyone had different musical tastes. But, no matter what genre most of the songs were, pretty much every one of us had Somebody That I Used to Know in their playlists. Everyone loved that song. It was all over the place.
That’s what I think of every time I hear it- having it come on at work and everyone lighting up and singing along with it. The funny thing is, I have an 11-year-old kid I sometimes look after and I keep a playlist for her with songs she’d added or told me she loves. Almost everything on it is either pretty current or tiktok relevant. And… guess what’s on it. Her choice. And she knows every word.
Heh, that was my first thought as the thread title. Written before my time but manages to make me wistful for a time I never know.
Not many songs from my past really “take me back”. For the most part, songs from my childhood or college years just make me think “This was a pretty cool song” but don’t evoke strong memories of a select time or event. One exception is Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing At All” which strongly reminds me of being a kid in my childhood basement and playing that album on the stereo since my mom only owned five records.
I’m in agreement with you. I don’t think Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby is a great song, it’s not even that good, and while I can’t point to any specific event it reminds me of, it came out when I was a freshman in high school in 1990, reminds me of that time period, and conjures up memories. Even though it’s not a tied to a specific film or show, I still consider it a shared one because if you were young in 1990 you know this song.
There are a number of songs that came out when I was about 3-4 years old that have an enormous emotional impact on me, although I cannot tie them to specific memories. It’s more of a vague feeling of discovering what music was, fleeting impressions of being very, very young.
Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights Elton John’s Song for Guy Jeanette’s Porque te Vas
Then, as pointed out above, there are songs that were deliberately written to feel nostalgic.
Mary Hopkin’s Those Were the Days Michel Fugain’s Une Belle Histoire (which made me feel nostalgic for a short but unforgettable fling years before I understood, much less knew what it was).
And then, there are song that are associated to specific moments of my life. Too many to list.
When I here that song, it makes me think of a company I worked at about 8 years ago. The corporate telecom system’s “lobby” music while waiting for a conference call to start consisted of a fixed playlist of songs and the first song was always Baker Street. I wouldn’t call it “nostalgic” so much as “stuck in my head”.
When I think of songs that are specifically written to be nostalgic, certain songs come to mind like:
Summer of 69 by Brian Adams
1979 by Smashing Pumpkins
Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant by Billy Joel
Castle on the Hill by Ed Sheeran
The artist is intentionally writing about stuff like growing up, growing apart from old friends, happier times, shit like that.
Other songs seem to evoke nostalgia because they evoke a particular place and/or time for enough people that it’s somewhat of a share experience. For example:
Take On Me by Ah Ha is almost universally used in soundtracks to evoke a nostalgic sense of the 1980s
Similarly, songs like Rush by Big Audio Dynamite, Hook by Blues Traveler, Two Princes by Spin Doctors, Send Me on My Way by Rusted Root, and Ants Marching by Dave Mathews Band, while not particularly “good” songs, I tend to associate with being a young adult in the 1990s without a any real problems because I would hear them constantly through college. And not surprisingly, they seem to show up on a lot of soundtracks in rom-coms and “failure to launch” stories about young people trying to get their shit together.
For me, the songs that feel most nostalgic aren’t necessarily the ones I listened to on the radio. They’re the songs that, back when I was in my late teens and early twenties, whenever I was hanging with a bunch of people late at night, someone would always take out a guitar and we’d start singing. Some of them were contemporary - late 80s, early 90s - and some were much older. None of them were in English.
Here’s an example (David Broza, “Under the Skies”, 1991).
Tom Waits wrote and sang a song called I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You.. Man, what a song. Throughout my life I’ve repeatedly found myself in the singers situation. Today I have my Kathleen Brennan, so the song for me is nostalgia as I’m sure it is for old Tom.
