Grandaddy – “Miner at the Dial-A-View”Īlways curious about the ways technology might color sentiment, Grandaddy predicted an extremely specific brand of nostalgia on the second-to-last song of their breakout record, The Sophtware Slump. Again, we find the songwriter citing distinct imagery as he waxes nostalgic: “Brass buttons, green silks, and silver shoes/ Warm evenings, pale mornings, bottle of blues.” –Jon Hadusekġ6. The song (included on Grievous Angel) was written prior to Parsons forming the International Submarine Band and touts some of the most aching, poetic lyrics he ever penned. It’s suspected that Parsons’ stepdad gave her alcohol in the hospital, exacerbating the problem, but this was never proven. Gram Parsons wrote “Brass Buttons” about his mother, who died from an alcohol-related liver disease after a lengthy stint in the hospital. She’ll never know if any of them made it. “I don’t know where they are,” Marshall sings at the song’s finish, ringing her words with regret. She sings about friends forced into sex acts by strangers and family members, friends who started selling hard drugs at age 13, a teenage boyfriend who had to sell sex to support his crack habit after she moved away. But as soon Marshall fleshes out the vignettes of the people who touched her life throughout childhood, “Names” becomes anything but calming. It’s one of the most subdued Cat Power songs, and until you listen to the lyrics, one of the calmest, too. Like a roll call at the cemetery, “Names” beads together portraits of characters buried in time with nothing but sparse piano and Chan Marshall’s earthy voice. And it’s a universal message, because one can become lost in the present if they cling to the past. When Adams concedes that “nothing can last forever,” he’s making that reconciliation for a whole generation of young adults. People related to this song… the tale of unrequited juvenile romance, the innocence of youth, and the pain of dwelling on such memories. His references to drive-ins and five-and-dime stores are sepia-toned and obvious, but they hit home for the twenty- and thirtysomethings listening to FM radio at the time. In contrast to most of the songs on this list, Bryan Adams’ mega-hit “Summer of ’69” looks back on better days with fondness rather than melancholy. That’s the secret hope buried in nostalgia: the feeling that maybe, if you make it, you’ll finally get back to the warm places you remember. There’s no difference between watching a trapeze swinger flip toward the sky with the person you love the most and finally clawing up to the place you’re supposed to end up if you’re good. And really, in the world of this song, there’s no difference between eternal reward and the feeling you hunger for through your best memories. “Please remember me,” he begs some long-lost childhood friend turned lover, braiding fondly recalled days from his past together with images of angels, Heaven, and graffiti-spangled pearly gates. If anyone can glide frictionlessly across nine minutes of gentle memories, it’s Sam Beam. He hopes she also keeps them: “I wanna hear you say, ‘I remember you.’ ” –Jon Hadusek His heartbroken sentiments are those of reflection he acknowledges the end of the relationship, but won’t discard the experiences they shared together. It’s one of the great power ballads of all time, following a vulnerable Sebastian Bach as he tries to shake the memory of a lost lover. I wasn’t even alive in that decade, and yet I suddenly become familiar with it via a song like Skid Row’s “I Remember You”. The definition of dated, the chorus effect has a wondrous caveat, in that it instantly teleports you to the ’80s. The effect was ubiquitous throughout the 1980s: If you were recording a major label album, your guitars were slathered with warm, synthetic tones. Guitarists hate chorus delay, and for good reason. Most of them are frankly very sad, as the past is always dotted with could’ves, should’ves, and would’ves, which are easy to dwell upon. Instead of listing the songs we found nostalgic, what about compiling a list of songs that are nostalgic? Many songwriters have made a career off tales of troubled pasts and old girlfriends, but then there are those certain songs that epitomize the idea of nostalgia. Yet, nostalgia is a universal human emotion, so we decided to flip the scenario. Music and nostalgia are intertwined in this way. Subconsciously, the music attaches itself to the context in which it was experienced most intensely, and by listening to it, we are taken back to that moment. Songs remind us of times in our lives, and familiar sounds trigger familiar images in our heads. Rob Sheffield once compared music to a time machine. gia noun : pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again.This feature was originally published in November 2013.
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