(Untitled)

[subdermal]

Nostalgic songs make me angry. Not songs that make me nostalgic (although those too, sometimes) but songs that are about nostalgia, about reliving days long since gone as if they were the best you'll ever have, or even good at all.

I'm not sure why.

Comments

[sinvokasha]

I can relate to this, especially if the songs are nostalgic about some past relationship. Personally I find that kind of thing annoying inasmuch as I perceive it as a manifestation of "you don't know what you've got until it's gone" - I sentiment which I tend to respond to with "if you weren't grateful when you had it, then you didn't deserve to have it anyway, so STFU." :)

I also wonder, when hearing songs about nostalgia, whether the person was ever really that happy or is distorting the situation with hindsight, and/or what the implications of this are for constructively moving on to bigger and better things in the future. (i.e. dwelling on an irrecoverable or imaginary past = not a functional strategy on this front.)

I'm curious, is there any intersection between all of that and the anger that you feel in connection with nostalgic songs?

Also curious whether any particular song inspired this entry.

[subdermal]

It's not really a problem with "past relationship" songs, because those songs are about missing the person, not the "era", for lack of a better word.

I think it's a combination of envy of people who have such happy memories, and a doubt that those times were really all that good, as you mention. It's also a general dissatisfaction with similar musings on my part, ie romanticizing times in my life that sound like a lot of fun when describing them but in reality were fraught with fear, poverty and similar things that I do not miss, no matter how much enjoyment I got out of avoiding those problems :D

Plus generally, shoegazing about the past is never really an experience I find cheerful :/

The specific song I heard that made me mad, which then made me realize these kinds of songs often make me mad, was a particularly horrible kid rock song that Chris posted on Facebook. I'm sure the kid rock factor didn't help my mood :D Don't click without remembering that this is KID ROCK we're talking about :D

[sinvokasha]

Heh heh, I just clicked the link to get the title and then googled the lyrics to satisfy my curiosity. :) As you say, it is Kid Rock after all...

[zastrazzi]

I find them annoying because there's this basic presumption that it's all downhill since whenever they were singing about.

Buncha givin' up failmonkeys.

[subdermal]

Yep that's definitely part of it.