The Nostalgia of Music
By Greg Evans
I was rummaging through my basement and stumbled upon an old boombox, a crippled black Panasonic, maybe circa 1985. Inside one was a cassette tape, but no ordinary LP- it was an old mixed tape. Interesting. Remarkably, I still had the power cord, and the radio still worked. Unfortunately, not the tape player. The only sound produced was a gasping and crunching of gears, psuedo-melted by undefinable liquid that oozed out of the 35-year-old batteries. I had envisioned listening to that old mixed tape while working through a six-pack of Hamm’s, and letting the songs take me back to a different time. A simpler time, when nebbish guys getting laid was a wet dream, and my teenage crush was a goddess, so perfect I wondered if she was made of glass and would shatter into a billion jagged shards if that field hockey ball hit her. Music had that power. Music can go underneath the skin and into the soul. It can pull out memories you had forgotten existed, and they can transport you through the ether, back to a reality that you barely paid attention to when you were there.
I then remembered I had another newer boombox, circa 1991, which played cassettes and CDs. The power cord for this one was long gone, so I ran down to the store and bought 8 double-D batteries for the RCA. I haven’t purchased double D batteries in probably over a decade. The cassette player, CD player, and radio all worked. I found four old mixed tapes in stale bags tucked away in the basement. The music hit me like it was 1996 all over again. If only we realized how important it was to have that music, in that moment, that one day would take us back to that time. If only I had the courage to lean in and kiss my little blonde crush while she was sitting next to me on the couch in the basement of my parents’ house that afternoon, while that song was playing, so I could go back to that moment every time I heard that song. Life regrets. That is how guys who never made out with their crushes in middle and high school think now as grown-up divorced adults. Or even married ones, still surreptitiously pining over that one that got away.
Music takes us to certain places, both good and bad. But it’s that nostalgic music that really does it. I grew up in a great town, just outside New York City, another great town, at a great time in history, had a great family and great friends surrounded by great music, both at home and on the radio. Everything was great. I was lucky. Not everyone has that. Sometimes I forget that I had that world, and when the modern world of artificial intelligence, natural flavorings, lousy iPhone 17s, and crumpled lottery tickets gets me down, it is music that hits a chord and brings me back.
It’s important to have vinyl, cassette tapes, and CDs on hand if you feel like listening to any of them at any given time. The digital shit. Trash bin.
I miss New York all the time. Punk rock music, for example, takes me back to all those shows at Irving Plaza and CBGBs in lower Manhattan, and the time spent in Long Beach, California, working for the newspaper and hanging out with Carlos and Lon, and Pamela, and Tia, and Irene, and my buddies from work. Music does weird things to us.
I like feeling nostalgic. It’s soothing. But not forced nostalgia. It has to come naturally, almost by accident.
Growing up, I had a crush on the same girl from 5th grade through high school. She never liked me the way I liked her because that would have been too perfect. But that was ok. There are no hard feelings, never were. Nature doesn’t like what it can’t control, and it can’t control how music hits us and how we decide what crush is worth chasing for years. Nature tries to control us, and we fight against it. I knew she was out of my league, and that I never stood a real chance, and my pathetic pining for her affection and endlessly dreaming gave it all meaning. It was poetic. I was Lord Byron without the flowing hair to back it up. I am filled with humiliation, revealing these true sentiments that I carried throughout my adolescence, but it was the foundation for the spectacular nostalgia I was able to experience in later life. And it was music that woke the sleeping dragon. Those songs come on at the grocery store, or while I am in a restaurant, and I am catapulted right back to my driveway, the basketball in my hands, practicing so I could be good enough for her to cheer for me. It’s cheesy, but it is what it is. I can’t control that. I don’t want to control it. If we had been together, learning each other’s idiosyncrasies, fighting and cheating and breaking up, would the music hit me the same? I don’t know. I doubt it, though. And I have no benchmark to weigh it against. I think that differentiates me from most people, who have something to measure nostalgia against. I only have what might have been had I been cooler, taller, the lead singer in a band, did I say cooler? My high school years were good, but could easily fit into the lyrics of a Katy Perry song. I was something I had to accept, but was never able to come to terms with. Certain songs remind me of this, too.
As we, the almost cool, wallowed in our awkwardness, the songs of Weezer, Rusted Root, Counting Crows, Maria Carey, Jade, Better Than Ezra, even Nirvana, MxPx, Flogging Molly, and Blink-182 tattooed our young brains with future blasts of nostalgia. The same can be true, hearing the songs of The Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Whitney Houston, or Phil Collins, but those are the pre-teen and post-college years. Isn’t it funny how that music came full circle? Guns ‘n Roses, Skid Row, White Snake, and Poison also have a role in the nostalgic waves I find myself surfing. By now, you might think that I live fully in the past, and think, what a sorry loser. I don’t live in the past at all. I don’t live in the future. I live solely and fully in the present, but, as a Cancer, known for my renowned emotional depth, and vulnerable heart hidden behind a crabbyish exterior (according to purewow), I can easily get swept up in memories of longing for that cute blonde girl that dated half my friends and got away. Again, I am not bitter. Emotionally scarred, traumatized, and psychologically damaged beyond repair, sure, but we all have to have something from our pasts to “get over.”