I’m not that old, well, I’m not young, but not as old as someone who would tune the radio to some random oldies. Even with that, I can’t say that I know that much about music myself. It was until recently that I suddenly felt overwhelmed with joy by pieces of music produced decades ago, some as far as those from our grandparents’ younger years.

I have always been interested in how the world has changed. I often found myself wondering what it feels like to be in the ’60s during the hippie movement. “Were people generally more patient than today?” “What kind of dream and fantasy young people had?” “What an average day of a teenage boy was like” It’s difficult to exactly know the society’s context at that given time from the perspective of today, and one good way to get closer to that is by listening to music that people had been listening to from that era.

I have been listening to older music quite intensively recently, from artists like Carpenter, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Bee Gees. they all really gave me chilling goosebumps. Those songs, with elegant choices of words and the way they strung together to form lyrics, I can’t help but admire the authors who put an effort to convey such a sophisticated meaning and emotion into music. What amazed me, even more, is that even if I have already heard these songs several times when I was a kid, I have never been feeling so moved by them until now. Perhaps it’s because of my habit which tends to overlook the words and just enjoy the flow of rhythms. It’s common knowledge that even the same book can be different when reading for a second time. To me, music is no different.

I always feel that older music is more sophisticated, and tends to convey a story more completely and elegantly. The most recent experience that I had is when I listened to “Yesterday’s Once More” by Carpenter. I have been hearing it a lot in my childhood as it was quite a household song in Thailand, but I had never followed and consciously interpreted the lyrics since I didn’t understand English well enough. What I just realized is that it is a whole narration of a story about a woman listening to her favorite song, something I can really relate and feel along to. Other popular songs like “My Way” and “Killing Me Softly” also exhibits similar form narrations that are as well magnificent to listeners.

Apart from that, I have also discovered tons of music that were unknown to me, as well as rediscovering music that had long been forgotten from my own memories. I even became more interested in a unique genre like ’80 Japanese city pop. One of My favorites is Mariya Takeuchi’s Plastic Love, that went viral several years back. Music didn’t only just get me to travel back to the past, but to the past of a certain culture as well.

It is true that at some point, we all want to escape our reality. Taking a break from daily routines, sometimes from stresses and worries. Some of us may choose to read and drown into fantasy, some of us may choose to listen and travel back in time. Listening to music is, perhaps, one easy way to change the atmosphere and switch your mood to restore your energy for a brief moment before getting back and continue with your life’s responsibilities.