Was Music More Magical When You Were Younger?

[Zzzptm]

By "magical", I don't mean anything mystical or inexplicable through science. I mean more a sense of awe, a deep impression, a strong bond formed between the young listener and the music. So much so that, years later, when you hear that piece, the world you once saw as a child rushes through your memory and you are there again, in the middle of that special, magical moment.

For example, when I was a child, I watched the show Sesame Street. This was back in its first few seasons, when they showed more experimental films and generally cool stuff that anyone could appreciate, not just Elmo-driven materiel aimed at the toddler crowd. One of the pieces portrayed was "The Sad Flower".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kojxgL3nf0Y

A few months ago, as I was returning to classical music and building out playlists, I found another version of Vivaldi's Guitar Concerto (the piece used here) and even though the water dripping off the flower wasn't in front of me as I listened to it, I saw it all in my mind and had a glorious, bittersweet moment. As I listen to it when it rolls around again in the playlist, the magic does not diminish.

As I listen to it again, I think of other songs that I heard when I was young that I don't just like, but which really send me into that other place. I'll bring up "Spiral Architect" by Black Sabbath as an example. I was in my teens when I first heard it and that song can bring tears to my eyes, I get so moved by it. I don't know exactly why, but there it is. I can't live without it because it has become a part of me. I can think of the whole song in my mind, it is part of me. It's merged with me, I suppose.

But have I had the same experience with music I hear in my older age? Do I have music that can penetrate me the way the Vivaldi piece did or "Spiral Architect?" Or do I just find songs that I like a lot?

There was one song I heard when I was a youth, "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief". It's a hymn in my church. It's a long one, 8 big verses and I first dismissed it as 19th-Century sentimentality. I still appreciated it on a religious level, but, as music, I dreaded the tune.

Then I heard David Johansen sing it at the end of a film about the New York Dolls' reunion. He sang it as a tribute to their bass player, who had passed away shortly after the reunion concerts. With that arrangement and the understanding of that circumstance, it struck me as deeply as any other song had done. Now, I seek it out to lift my spirits and look forward to the music of it when it is chosen as a hymn for services. But when I sing it, I imagine Johansen's rough farmhand voice, the sparse guitar, and the plaintive harmonica in my accompaniment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ScjX6q_Qc

Another song that will make me well up with emotion I first heard 17 years ago, when I was 33. It's not on the YouTube, or I'd share the link. It's called "Andrew Gray and the Ghost", by Roxy Gordon, a Dallas folk poet/singer. I loved it and cherished it the first time I heard it. Then, in the course of the year, the ideas from that song kept recurring in my life in such a way that that, too, left me as a child watching a flower struggle in an urban tenement perch.

And so, I wonder... I can still be reached by the magic in music, but is it more or less frequently than before? I wonder...

[Billy Underdog]

Blank statement: Yes!

[Zzzptm]

Blank statement: Yes!

So what's an example of that time and experience?

[Billy Underdog]

Blank statement: Yes!

So what's an example of that time and experience?

Metallica and Sabbath was pretty magical as a 10-12 yr old. All hard n' heavy music, really. Going to sleep with Guns N' Roses blasting. Even had a mix-tape of the epics from Ride The Lightning and Master Of Puppets called Magic. Memories of running around as a kid.
Starting playing in bands at 14, there's alot of the tunes we played that brings me back.
A bit older, having started smoking Ganja, 60's Rock and Prog became very magical.
Because of a common love for Beatles it went years after my girlfriend broke up until i could listen to For No One without breaking out in tears. Just recently managed to listen to Nick Caves Into My Arms.

[Charger]

I would also like to say YES.

Although I wasn't really listening to music much when I was a kid...as far as I can remember anyways. My love affair with all things music started with Sabbath's Dehumanizer back when I was 15 which I suppose is bit late actually.

I don't really remember if I was "into" any bands before that.

[Axefiend]

Yes, just like I wrote in the other thread. Going through my Dad's record collection, probably when I was about 4 or 5, I came across this tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zBzZJd-nfw

I wasn't old enough to understand the subject manner, but I could feel the angst and intensity in the song that gave me chills.

[Zzzptm]

^ Marty Robbins! Guy's a treasure! I discovered him as I went into my 20s as I found there were some kinds of Country and Western music that I liked. Passionate topic, excellent voice, beautiful song. I know anyone who loves that song is not alone, because it's served to inspire both Deep Purple's "Rosa's Cantina" and the finale of Breaking Bad, which was even titled "Felina".

[Axefiend]

^^^ Cheers! Didn't know that about the Deep Purple tune, but sure make's sense now with a name like: "Rosa's Cantina!

This was my first taste of Rock:



Heartbreak Hotel had much the same effect on me as "El Paso" did, Too young to know what the hell was going on in that song, but I could FEEL it!

It's all pretty much scratched up now, but I still have this album in my collection. Lot's of great memories!!

[Zzzptm]

I think the element of discovery is something that adds to the magic of a piece of music, and there's certainly plenty of discovery when we're young. I remember being allowed to start looking through my parents' record collection. I played a lot of Beatles and then found this one... Janis Joplin's Pearl. I'd heard "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Mercedes Benz" before, but my mom usually played just those two and then changed the album over.

So I put this on, put on my headphones and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0E6TMHy_RA

... I think I fell in love with that music at that point. Janis was basically my reward for heading off into the unknown. There were lots of potential treasures to be had out there... one day, I'd even start buying my own tunes. But first, there was what was in my parents' record cabinet.

[Sabbabbath]

YES. I remember when I first listened to Neil Young's Harvest album, it felt so good and deep that I started to wonder whether my parents possibly had listened to it while my mother was pregnant with me. (My parents said that was possible.) Similarly with "The Best of Leonard Cohen". When I seriously started listening to CDs, I used to listen to whole albums and read the lyrics in the booklets in order to learn singing along. I did that a lot, so I learnt the lyrics pretty quickly, and soon were several albums (from Scorpions, Sabbath, Savatage, Blind Guardian and a few other bands) that I could sing along entirely without needing the booklets anymore. Sometimes I just listened to music the whole day. When I was unhappily in love, I turned the music very loud and listened to LOTS of sad songs. When I was angry, I listened to Metal - often Metallica, sometimes all albums in a row, from Kill 'em All to the Black Album. My father had 8 CDs from Pink Floyd, and sometimes I listened to all of them in a row too, and then started the first one again.

Actually, most of the artists I listen to these days are artists that I already listened to when I was 20 years old or younger. Some I have lost interest in (Scorpions, Blind Guardian...), many have stayed with me. Only few I came across later have stayed... Townes van Zandt, Oi Va Voi... I am a much more serious collector now than when I was younger, and there's still a lot of magic in music for me, but yes, back than it was something special that most certainly won't come back.

[Zzzptm]

Townes is amazing. My mom used to be a DJ for a Texas Outlaw Country show and got to meet lots of those guys, including Townes.

[Sabbabbath]

Townes is amazing. My mom used to be a DJ for a Texas Outlaw Country show and got to meet lots of those guys, including Townes.

That's great! Townes seems to have suffered from depression and other hardships much of his life, yet at the same time had a great humour. And of course he made phantastic music.

[Tyr66]

I think the element of discovery is something that adds to the magic of a piece of music, and there's certainly plenty of discovery when we're young. I remember being allowed to start looking through my parents' record collection. I played a lot of Beatles and then found this one... Janis Joplin's Pearl. I'd heard "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Mercedes Benz" before, but my mom usually played just those two and then changed the album over.

So I put this on, put on my headphones and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0E6TMHy_RA

... I think I fell in love with that music at that point. Janis was basically my reward for heading off into the unknown. There were lots of potential treasures to be had out there... one day, I'd even start buying my own tunes. But first, there was what was in my parents' record cabinet.

I saw this movie few months before and almost managed to make me cry, and believe me, it's not easy.
What she experienced during her school years is so unfair and sad. Tragic destiny.
Fan since this evening. Thanx to Arte tv channel.

[Tyr66]

when you're young, you feel everything in the first degree and ignore all the tricks, overdubs, live bands and other live in studio, hidden musicians backstages or behind a curtain etc ... all those horrors that make you fall from high and take away some of the magic when you learn that later.
Same thing when I saw live videos of my favorite bands for the first time. I imagined them moving and behaving so differently in my mind while listening to their record. all the charm of teen naiveté ...

[Zzzptm]

Photos of the band in concert always helped me to form an idea of what the actual concert would look like. Even so, this is how I imagined Page would sound when I listened to those studio albums: