There are some songs that really put me in a pensive, nostalgic mood and put me in mind of times I never experienced, places I’ve never been to, and I don’t know why.
Keane - Somewhere only we know
Robbie Williams - Feel
Wil Young - Think I Better Leave Right Now
Manics - Design For Life
Alan Parsons - The Eagle will Rise Again
New Model Army - The Price
Gilbert O”Sullivan - Alone Again
Abba - One of Us
Olivia Newton-John - Hopelessly Devoted
Stevie Wonder - Lately
what is it about these beautiful songs? Are there any other similar ones?
https://youtu.be/Oextk-If8HQ
Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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Some of Moondance is similarly evocative without tying itself down to actually meaning anything.
The Eagles' Tequila Sunrise does it for me, the mournful pedal steel guitar makes me feel I'm waking up around the dying embers of a campfire somewhere out on the range (somewhere I've never been in my life!), and the chords in the bridge part ("Take another shot of courage") make for a really haunting feel.
I can hear stuff like Dire Wolf or Jack Straw and instantly place myself living in the American mid-west in a tumbledown shack.
Ah yes. Also Wasted Time, so poignant.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Space Age Love Song - A Flock of Seagulls.
Biloxi - Jesse Winchester.
The Dutchman - Liam Clancy.
Time Passages - Al Stewart
Marlene On The Wall - Suzanne Vega
MacArthur Park - Richard Harris
None of them have any significance to my past, so it can only be down to song mood and/or lyrics.
my all time fave nostalgic melancholic song is Wishing on a star, Rose Royce. It’s a very dear song to me. Totally throws me back to my happy teen years with my family, with that tinge of sadness that those days are gone forever.
There's Elephant which is sad but beautiful song about a friend dying of cancer:
Or Live Oak which has a historical setting but somehow still really takes you there:
Pearl Jam - Small Town
Ash - Girl From Mars
Suede - Saturday Night
Can you tell I'm a kid of the 90s?!
October 1999, Pebble Beach, California (yes THAT Pebble Beach for those golfers amongst you). Mrs O and I and another couple were driving up the Pacific Coast Highway from San Diego to San Fran. On this particular leg of the trip we hadn't booked anywhere in advance and we'd been driving for c.9 hours without finding anywhere to stop. There was a jazz fest on and Monterey (where we'd intended to stop) was completely booked out. We then saw a sign for a hotel in the dusk and we turned off and pulled up outside. It was spectacular and VERY expensive-looking. Even I had heard of Pebble Beach golf course and this was right next to it with spectacular clifftop views across the ocean. We realised it was going to be ludicrously expensive but we were all tired so my mate and I went in to check quite how eye-watering it was.
There was a price list on a board. The cheapest double rooms were $300 a pop. A $600 stopover was not what we had in mind. We were about to go back to the car and set off when the receptionist asked if she could help. We explained that lovely though the hotel was, it was a little more than we wanted to pay for a one-night stopover. "Ah well sir, we have an offer on this weekend. If you stay with us for tonight (Friday) and tomorrow, our double rooms are $99 a night. And I can offer you a free upgrade to a premium room."
Fifteen minutes later, the four of us were sitting in a hot tub sipping cocktails and gazing out over the Pacific. Bliss.
The girls went to bed after dinner and my chum and I decided to have a nightcap or three. We found a little basement bar and there was a flyer stating that a local singer/guitarist was playing that evening. The lady in question appeared and was extremely good. Great instrumentalist, great voice. She did some of her own stuff and then asked the small audience if they had any requests. I popped up my hand and asked for 'At Seventeen'. She sang it. You could have heard a pin drop. I will freely admit I was crying at the end - it was that moving. Rapturous applause.
Apologies for the meandering story but the song fitted in to the whole tale otherwise it would have been slightly meaningless!
I’m not sure who it is the subject of the song makes me think of. Probably me but none of the subject matter really relates to me at all.