Nostalgic Songs
We often feel nostalgic remembering how good things used to be, so the first song on our list of nostalgic songs is a song that reminisces on the past and growing up.
Remember When by Alan Jackson
This is a song about looking back at your life. All songs on this theme seem to be inherently nostalgic, and bring up emotions related to that, making us feel a little melancholy, and a little bittersweet. What makes this song special is that its melody perfectly matches the mood of the lyrics.
That blend really makes you feel for the singer, enter his emotional space, and have a cathartic experience, looking bad at a little bit of your own years going by, and a little bit of his years going by.
Yesterday by the Beatles
The first time I ever heard this song I was 11 or 12. It was a long time ago, so I don’t remember much about the circumstances, but I remember being moved so deeply and so unusually by this song. Decades later, this song still does it to me. The Beatles are like aliens from a different world, seemingly making historically-great songs with each release.
Perhaps its the sincerity of the vocals. or Paul McCartney’s beautiful voice, or the simplicity of the instruments combined with the depth of philosophical content of pining about yesterday. It’s hard to tell. I’ll keep thinking about it, and will write more about this in the future.
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac
Just like the song Yesterday by the Beatles, I was forever changed when I first listened to Landslide. This is a very nostalgic song. It’s a song by a daughter to her father, and perhaps of all the wonderful things in this song, most of the nostalgia comes from the opportunities missed that a daughter and a father could have shared while focusing on their disagreements instead.
As a listener, I find myself reminiscing about the lost potential of that father and daughter relationship.
The Road – Translated To English by Alex Genadinik
This is a song originally by the great Russian singer-songwriter Bulat Okudzhava, translated to English. Many people in the west are not familiar with Bulat, but he was a wonderful poet. You can think of him as the Russian Bob Dylan or the Russian Leonard Cohen. Here is a link with a list of Bulat Okudzhava’s songs translated to English. And here is a link to a page with full lyric and song analysis of this song about leaving a bad relationship and the sorrow that comes from breakup.
The Magic Of Emotional Music
Having an emotional and cathartic experience, feeling nostalgic or sharing other emotions with a singer, who is a person you don’t know and have never met is a truly human experience. I have been thinking about this for many years, and it’s one of the best thing about life – to be able to have more rich emotional experiences.
Guardians of Souls by Alex Genadinik
This is a song about my own experience of loneliness and struggle. It’s about how I found support during my times of struggle from poets and musicians whose music carried me through that time in my life.
Here is a link to full lyrics and analysis of this song about poets, musicians, and artists.
Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits
This song has a very slow feel and tempo. Nevertheless, it works because of the emotional content in the sound and lyrics creating a nostalgic and reminiscent mood in the listener.
Memories From The Musical Cats
This song is about an older cat thinking back about her life. This is a similar theme to so many of these other nostalgic songs. Many of them look back at parts of the song hero’s life, dwelling on how nice things were or how nice they could have been.
The musical Cats has become less popular over the years, but this song is a classic from that musical which lives on.
Turn, Turn, Turn by Judy Collins
Of A Different Time by Bulat Okudzhava, Translated by Alex Genadinik
The line of this song that struck me the most in is “Perhaps my love’s naive and out fashion, I let it be my life’s endeavor.”
It’s a song about fighting a losing battle knowing that it’s a losing battle, but fighting it nonetheless because it’s something you believe. Most of us have fought such battles, which is what makes this song so nostalgic and human. Here is the link to learn more about this song.
