The Endless Search for Musical Nostalgia
Lately, I have been on a musical nostalgia trip and am trying to find a few lost gems from my youth.
The early seventies is where it started and while I was still at junior school. Finding something from this era that is non-radio played, and has not been stolen for some cheesy commercial is a difficult proposition.
I was only just in double age figures when the music bug hit me hard and would ritually listen to the Top 40 at 12.45 pm on Tuesdays.
It's been almost 2 years since I wrote a music post, the reason being that I exhausted my memory content. While it's a bad idea to avoid the search for new decent music, there's so little of it about I can't be bothered.
Likewise finding old seventies obscure tunes that might trigger memories is also not easy. Whereas some of them may be played to death on the radio and other commercial outlets, others are doomed to obscurity.
Alone Again (Naturally) – Gilbert O'Sullivan (Back to Front – 1972)
1972 is before I started my music obsession but I remember this annoying nasally voice from my youth, as well as his bobble-headed afro-hair image.
I was not a fan and although his voice was distinct and unique like all the best vocalists, this bloke was no better than David Cassidy or Donny Osmond in my mind.
He was someone for teenage girls to swoon over and spread on their bedroom walls.
I still can't make myself listen to the sickly 'Clair' though I can't dispute it is lyrically very strong.
Alone Again (Naturally) was a huge hit in America, much more so that in my native England, and I had no idea at the time, its tone was so dark.
It tells of suicidal thoughts, being jilted at the altar, and the death of his parents. This is very heavy stuff for one so young and lyrically powerful.
Talk about a depressing tune. I find myself listening to this song often, and will need to stop lest I find myself climbing a tower to jump off the top, as the lyrics describe.
Sweet Illusion – Junior Campbell (Single Only -1973)
While scouring old 'Top of the Pops' shows on YouTube and grimacing every time I see Jimmy Saville pop-up, I happened upon this obscure song that immediately registered in my head.
Like the previous song, I was hardly a fan of this Scottish bloke with a strange name. Is everyone called Campbell from Scotland; he's not the first I have encountered.
For a week or so the song embedded itself in my brain and I had a most annoying ear-worm. I knew then I had hit on something that had resonated with me.
I checked out the other songs from 'Junior Cambell' and found his biggest hit was 'Hallelujah Freedom'. Why was that very much mediocre track so popular whereas ‘Sweet Illusion’ failed to crack the top 10?
You won't hear 'Sweet Illusion' played on the radio, it's too seventies sounding, obscure, and sports the finest elephant trumpeting sound since Farley "Jackmaster" Funk's, 'Love Can't Turn Around'.
Foolish Beat – Debbie Gibson (Out of the Blue -1988)
I rediscovered this old gem around 2016. How it happened I can’t recall, but do remember thinking, ‘how many years since I heard that?’.
Why has this once massive, ex-number one all but had disappeared from the airwaves?
I have to hold big respect for Miss Gibson, writing this amazing heart-breaker at such a young age. If you the type of person that music gets into your psyche and creates an emotional response then you are on my track. Commiserations if you don't have this 'ability', you are missing out.
I should dig into my dusty collection of CD-Singles that are banged up in a cupboard somewhere. I am quite sure this is lying there at the bottom, lost and forgotten about.
If you remember my old music posts you might be thinking, ‘this is all a little ordinary and mainstream for him’.
Quite true I would retort, but I am not all about eclectic, weird shit that nobody has ever heard of. In my youth, before my brain got warped along the way, the mainstream was my thing.
…but if you think I am getting sloppy, and romantic I will add a fourth track so you know that I am still quite in touch with albeit older music, but still, 'that weird shit they used to play in HMV'.
So many bands tried to emulate ‘Siouxsie and the Banshees’, and I am quite OK with that, especially if I can hear their trademark guitar sound in some format or other.
My search goes on for those nostalgic obscure seventies tunes that drag up memories, and may possibly uncover old memory fragments.
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I was not born when any of these songs were released 😅😂😂. I listened to everything I like foolish beat the most. It's more like my kinda music. Thanks for sharing 😁
I talk occasionally to my daughter about todays music. She's more into the underground stuff, whereas at 18, I was mainstream. What do you think of todays mainstream?
When you say today's mainstream, do you mean by today's music aired. I googled mainstream but I could not find out to relate with it in the context.
Yeah... the music that is in the current charts.
What I think is most of the music today lacks meaning. In my country the music that trends often have no meaning from it, what they all dance to is the beat in the song.
Let me send you one music that is trending in my country. There is no meaning in anything said in that song.
Yeah @slobberchops, this is one...
Many people do similar things in my country (in Hungary) too. They often listen to songs in foreign languages, and they litetally do not understand a single word from the lyrics, but they dance to the song.
I gave up after a minute!
Me neither (I was born on 1992.09.17), but I like these songs very much. They are often better than today's songs. Especially the music from the 1970s, from the 1980s and from the 1990s. And I often listen to music from even much older times. For example from the 1940s. It is good to listen to these songs for some reason. And sometimes it is also good to think about the past.
My daughter is younger than you, but loves 80's music. She can't abide the current top 40. Comments like yours make me think it's not just me that's dismissing the current crap and that it really is crap!
These songs are virtually old songs but bet me when it's played this days it will still remain an evergreen song because of the word in it. They are great. Thanks for sharing this great artists
Seventies tunes have a certain 'sound' to them. You rarely hear it anymore, and some of them can seem cheesy.
Those sounds are so ever green that it's actually hard to get anywhere in this recent times.. they are so special
I still listen to the 90s music and miss them.
The nineties, was that the last decade of anything interesting? It was for me, and from thereon it was slim pickings!
Pop music in my country began to take off in 90s.
I was starting to wonder if I would recognise any of these then the last one saved me. It took me ages to get into music. I had a right embarrassing collection in my younger formative years. I think Belinda Carlisle might have been the first that I bought so this looks way more eclectic than that!
They are musical relics, it doesn't surprise me.
Is it shameful to say I too liked Belinda Carlisle? I was completely different then and besides a bit of prog like Genesis, loved the top 40 shit! The Go-Go's were OK too, Belinda's former girly band.
Yeah, I was like you, listening to and taping the top 40 every week. I think we all were as life was so small scale back then. I still occasionally listen to the hits of the today and try not to dismiss then out of hand. Which is damn hard, lol
Musical modern day chart-listening tenacity! Wish I had that...
It's all shit but it makes the missus moan less about me having metal on all the time!
LOL, metal is fine, and should be played LOUD!
We have vastly different ideas of loud. But yes, it really should!
you have my friend posted some right shite there, you will be telling us next you used to crack one off whilst listening to Debbie Harry.
Debbie was alright, especially 'Parallel Lines' though I was tormented with ripped off versions of Blondie songs courtesy of Kiwksave and their 'noise machine' that was designed to drive stock lads insane.
It's all nostalgia and reminds me of when I was young and a slave to the system. Are you not a music freak, for some it's not a big deal?
Tbh @slobberchops since my hearing is fucked I have given up on music completely.
Before the demise I had quite an eclectic taste from Tamla through sabbath ending up with Lucinda Williams. Though I have never enjoyed "pop chart music".
I think kwikies has had a marked effect on your life !!!!! 😂
I went through a Tamla stage when I was around 18 and still have a soft spot for it. Sabbath.., the first album was great!
Yes.., my memoirs are compensating me for those years of torture!
😂😅🤣
I love it dude, nothing like a kick of nostalgia on the weekend.
I tend to go for either 60's stuff (like the doors) even though I wasn't alive in the 60's my ma played 60's stuff constantly. My other ogo to is 1990's gangster rap... probably the less popular choice.
I enjoyed listening to the debbie gibson tune and the COCTEAU TWINS. Also, they really knew how to grow an epic barnet back in the 70's 😅
Here's one of my fav nostalgic tunes:
You don't hear those songs anymore.., nostalgia is great ain't it? I prefer the Sundays version of 'Horses', though technically it's a ripoff.
Yeah, it is beautiful with the female singer. I can play wild horses (badly) on my guitar. Might break it out now and have a chill-out afternoon :)
Also, this song by Jimi Hendrix. It's pretty tame compared to his usual style but there's just something about it.
A bit of Jimi is always good.
The sundays also make me think of University days :) and Ride...this album always makes me think of cramming for finals and then packing up my car to head home for the Summer hols haha.
I wondered where you would go in this 'past' search for nostalgia. Firstly I love Cocteau twins and it makes me think of my University days. My own musical tastes run pretty far back. I grew up with old parents, very old and they were 'teens' before rock and roll existed, so as well as listening to 'new wave' as a youth I also grew up on 40s swing and old jazz and blues. Bessie Smith to Doris Day.
On top of that I adored my Grandfather (for whom my love of gardening comes) and he was also ancient (having had my father he he too was Very old) and we used to listen to his old gramophone with 78 records on. I always now play Caruso even on my current device when I'm in the garden as it makes me think of those days playing the old gramophone in the garden.
I also had a cache of old 78's that were popular songs from the early 1900's and the mix of 'gaiety' songs to Jazz and Blues into the New Wave of the 80's and alternative 90s with Throwing muses and their kind have me recalling pasts pretty far back.
I've no idea what 'top charts' are today, do they have top charts? Does that world exist? I suppose whatever is on TikTok is the 'charts'.
This was a fun trip @slobberchops and thanks for having me recall my own musical nostalgia.
I scour old Top of the Pops on YouTube but rarely find anything.
So do I, I went through their whole discography a few years ago and wondered why I missed it all when it was released.
They do, its on Sundays now I think but is generally remixes of this that and the others, or someone featuring someone else, with added bits by someone else again. I stopped listening a few years ago.
Oh that's interesting @slobberchops I wondered if teens today simply got music from tik tok influencers reference as I know most under 20 dont' watch TV or even use computers (other than for school work) just phones. But, I'm hopelessly not connected to that world, just really gleaning it from media. That's interesting to know there is still a top of the pops sort of world.
I love throwing muses, always thought they were underrated
There is very little that hits harder than nostalgia. I am basically a kid still (1995), but somehow all those songs do trigger that nostalgia as I heard them when I was way younger (my mom liked old music). Awesome post!
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I would like to know why so many people have always liked songs that are not purposeful and don't include lofty meanings and values, and have large popularity. While things with heritage and meanings don't care about it?
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I was raised in the era when rock and roll was young and curious. So many wonderful sounds to be experimented with! My favorites have always been the guitar rock bands, but as far as a song goes, this is the one that has followed me through my whole life. To this day, I sometimes even sing the intro when I have nothing to say. It always gets a music conversation started. This song is the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious of music.
I grew up on 70s music, so some of it still resonates with me. I even listen to Johnny Walker doing Sounds of the 70s sometimes, but a lot of that is stuff that gets played anyway. The missus is only a couple of years younger than me, but prefers 80s, so we have to tolerate Absolute 80s at times. I don't feel the need to keep listening to the same old stuff all the time. I've been exploring various bands I missed via Spotify. I just see what it suggests and sometimes I strike gold. Maybe I need a post about that.
I seem to be subscribing to my daughters 'Spotify', strange us parents get roped into all that? Might be an idea, if I get some logon details from her.
The 70's had a unique sound, especially the early part of the decade. Never to be repeated.
I maintain that the late 60s and early 70s were the most creative time in popular music. Of course there's lots of crap from then too, but there's lots of great music being made right now. You just need to seek it out.
This is what wax nfts are for
Love all these songs. Nostalgic
I just discovered a treasure trove of vinyl in my parents home. Some great sounds will be humming from my turntable over the next couple weeks.
My kids love 70's and 80's music! Most of their friends do too. It's easy and upbeat. (mostly) My mom used to walk around the house singing all the time... Hello? Gilbert and Sullivan... I don't think I ever listened to the word to the depth I did tonight. Oh!
I usually do analyze songs, trying to get into the head of who is singing them.. My mother sang that song and loved that tune so much, I wonder if she knew what the words said? Probably not, she wouldn't have sang it to us! LOL, I looked up all the lyrics tonght. The dude was depressed!!!
LOL, I didn't think anything of it in 1972, that bloke knew how to tell stories in his songs.., I couldn't do with him when I was little! Its strange that you get to appreciate things differently later in life.
True!! I eat sushi now, years ago, that would have been gross!
Thanks always for the free entertainment!
I have been doing the same recently. Listening to Classic Vinyl and Deep Tracks on satellite radio.
Here are a couple I have had the chance to dig into.
Sweet! Some Ballroom Blitz and Fox on the Run are not all they got!
I was thinking that the band Free had a Bad Company vibe. A little Paul Rodgers will do that!
A bit of downtime and we can rediscover that which we may have missed.
The Sweet is a blast from my childhood, I do love 'Love is like Oxygen' which came later in 1978.
debbie gibson.... phwooaarrr... thats a blast from my (electric) youth....
She was more than a little tasty!