"Across the Universe" by The Beatles
I first heard this song almost 10 years ago in 8th grade, shortly before we had our 8th grade dance. My parents own a vinyl copy of
The Blue Album (1967-1970) and I wanted to listen to the tracks released during the
Let It Be sessions. This song caught my attention, and after I had a really good time dancing with some female friends (who I really wish I still talked to as their personalities back then were pretty much the same as my own today), I put this specific song on the record player when I got home, and instantly had a moment. I nearly teared up because I was still thinking about the dance; it was one of the few truly happy moments in my life so far. I've associated this song with that dance ever since, and I still get emotional thinking about it.
"Weekend" by Unicorn
Believe it or not, David Gilmour of
Pink Floyd produced this forgotten UK band's album in 1976. Why is it nostalgic for me? Well, simply put, "Weekend" is one of the few songs I vividly remember listening to regularly right before New Horizons' release. If you take a listen, it has that slight country vibe to it, without it sounding too country. It just simply gives off good vibes in general. I had actually discovered the song the year before in 2019, and randomly decided to revisit it during the months leading up to the new Animal Crossing title.
"Haunted When the Minutes Drag" by Love and Rockets
From the debut album by several ex-Bauhaus members, this is a song I'd really wish meant more to me than it actually did. Does this come to the rather quick conclusion that the song isn't good? Absolutely not; I love it. If I had success in building friendships and continuing my college education past my high school years, it would be the go-to song for me. Unfortunately, my rather short college career ended up becoming a total disaster, and I had to pay the price of nearly $13,000 for a single semester at the university I dropped out of. If there were any positives that came out of those years, listening to this song was one of them.
"Deep Breakfast" by Ray Lynch
An entire instrumental new age album from the 80's??? Yep. "The Oh of Pleasure" was featured in
Grand Theft Auto IV, on one of the radio stations that played ambient new age music. I'm not even joking. But man, what an impact hearing that song had on me. I thought it sounded so good, I decided to purchase the album on my phone in 2012 and give the whole album a listen. Each song is unique in different ways, which is pretty rare for a new age album. I fell so much in love with the genre in general, that I went out to discover more songs like it that were released during the 80's and 90's. I can't believe I'm saying this, but a video game about killing people made me fall in love with ambient new age music. Who knew.
"The Tourist" by Gerry Rafferty
This song, alongside his standout "Baker Street" as well as "Home and Dry" released on the previous album
City to City, are excellent road trip songs. I listened to them on the highways leading to my mom's family in Illinois, and have made that connection ever since. I especially love Raphael Ravenscroft's sax playing, which made Rafferty's solo songs popular in the first place. The fact that the songs talk about travelling just makes them even better as the road trip songs I consider them to be.
Last but not least... Electric Light Orchestra
I'm not going to link to a specific song of theirs (I probably met the embed limit for a single post), but I'm going to give a credit to the orchestral rock band Electric Light Orchestra for getting me into old rock music in the first place via my dad, who's a huge Jeff Lynne fan. Growing up, he would always play their albums in the house on repeat, and I realized that this was some real good stuff I was listening to. I further discovered 70's rock more and more on my own, and these days, much prefer it over the new stuff that's released today. That right there is probably the most memorable music moment in my life yet.
I may post more songs here when I think of them.