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You are here: Home / Music / Somewhere in my youth or childhood

Somewhere in my youth or childhood

by DougJ|  March 31, 20121:35 pm| 144 Comments

This post is in: Music, Readership Capture

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I heard the Lauryn Hill song “Every Ghetto, Every City” while I was riding the train yesterday and it got me thinking: what’s the best song ever about looking back on childhood? I’ll go with “I Wish” by Stevie Wonder, but I also like the Van Morrison song “Take Me Back” (especially the whacked out version JLL does in “Georgia”, as awful as it is). What else is good?

Please, don’t mention that Nickelback song “Photograph”, not even as a joke. There’s nothing funny about an existential threat.

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Previous Post: « Dazed And Confused
Next Post: Long since passed understanding what it takes to be satisfied »

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  1. 1.

    Anya

    March 31, 2012 at 1:37 pm

    Nickelback, Canada’s worse crime against humanity.

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    March 31, 2012 at 1:37 pm

    Sometimes you just gotta go with the Boss.

  3. 3.

    Southern Beale

    March 31, 2012 at 1:37 pm

    Americans have weird hobbies.

    That is all.

  4. 4.

    Joey Maloney

    March 31, 2012 at 1:38 pm

    REM, “Nightswimming”.

  5. 5.

    Yutsano

    March 31, 2012 at 1:39 pm

    @Southern Beale: Did you ever come up with too many jokes at once? Yeah, I’m right there…

  6. 6.

    ralphdibny

    March 31, 2012 at 1:40 pm

    @Yutsano: I was thinking Glory Days, but that one works too.

  7. 7.

    Anya

    March 31, 2012 at 1:43 pm

    @Anya: why can’t I edit the damn comment?

  8. 8.

    Southern Beale

    March 31, 2012 at 1:46 pm

    @Yutsano:

    Still trying

  9. 9.

    c u n d gulag

    March 31, 2012 at 1:46 pm

    Well, it’s not quite ‘childhood,’ but as I grow older, I love Frank Sinatra’s “It Was A Very Good Year:”

    http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/frank+sinatra/it+was+a+very+good+year_20056372.html

    Also too – Melanie’s “Brand New Key:”
    http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/boogienightsvol1/brandnewkey.htm

  10. 10.

    Nina

    March 31, 2012 at 1:46 pm

    Cattle and Cane, The Go-Betweens

  11. 11.

    Southern Beale

    March 31, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    A song about looking back on childhood? Can’t believe nobody mentioned “Butterfly Kisses.”

    { ducks … runs from room ….}

  12. 12.

    wrb

    March 31, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    another Van- Redwood Tree

    Catfish John

  13. 13.

    red dog

    March 31, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    Harry Belafonte’s “Man Piaba”. “when I was a lad just three foot three, certain questions occurred to me”.
    Was recorded sometime in the mid ’50s.

  14. 14.

    Marcellus Shale, Public Dick

    March 31, 2012 at 1:49 pm

    ass ponys

    little bastard

  15. 15.

    Nicole

    March 31, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    @red dog: I. Love. That. Song. Since I was five years old (we had his Live at Carnegie Hall on 8-track). Though I didn’t get the full hilarity then.

  16. 16.

    Matthew Reid Krell

    March 31, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    Careful now, Rick Santorum has accused Obama of being a Nickelback fan. So all us Obots need to line up behind the President.

  17. 17.

    Yutsano

    March 31, 2012 at 1:52 pm

    @Southern Beale: That’s it. I’m sending Bnut on a mission after you. And no one tickles like a Marine. Yer in trouble now lady! :)

    (Dammit, doing a half-shift at work but I’ll try to stay in touch as much as I can.)

  18. 18.

    Southern Beale

    March 31, 2012 at 1:52 pm

    Sarah Hickman had a great song that fits the bill but I can’t remember the name of it offhand.

  19. 19.

    Nicole

    March 31, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    A song about looking back on childhood? Can’t believe nobody mentioned “Butterfly Kisses.”

    I believe the topic was “songs about looking back on childhood” not “songs about a parent’s repressed pedophilia/incest.”

  20. 20.

    Irony Abounds

    March 31, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    Neil Diamond with Shilo and Brooklyn Roads

  21. 21.

    Cassidy

    March 31, 2012 at 1:54 pm

    Summer of 69- Bryan Adams

  22. 22.

    Polish the Guillotines

    March 31, 2012 at 1:55 pm

    @Marcellus Shale, Public Dick: Holy cow. I was thinking about this exact song. Nice.

    Growing up in Berkeley, I have to nod in the direction of locals, the Mister T Experience:
    Now We Are Twenty-One.

    It was an anthem for me and my friends.

  23. 23.

    dj spellchecka

    March 31, 2012 at 1:55 pm

    gerry goffin and carole king’s “going back”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqHb7RFpoxU

  24. 24.

    Nina

    March 31, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    Story of My Life, Social Distortion.

  25. 25.

    Raven

    March 31, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    Child’s Song Tom Rush.

    Tomorrow I’ll be in some other sunrise
    Maybe I’ll have someone at my side

  26. 26.

    Steve M.

    March 31, 2012 at 1:58 pm

    “Dirty Dream Number Two” by Belle and Sebastian is the best song ever about looking back on pubescent wet dreams.

  27. 27.

    Cassidy

    March 31, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    @Nina: Or this one.

  28. 28.

    dj spellchecka

    March 31, 2012 at 2:00 pm

    jayhawks “10 little kids”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goox4SnszCw

  29. 29.

    Raven

    March 31, 2012 at 2:00 pm

    Volunteers

    One generation got old
    One generation got sold
    This generation got no destination to hold
    Pick up the cry

  30. 30.

    John - A Motley Moose

    March 31, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin

  31. 31.

    wrb

    March 31, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    The Clothes Line Saga

    whether by the Roaches

    or the original from The Basement Tapes

  32. 32.

    Raven

    March 31, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    Hope I Die Before I Get Old!

  33. 33.

    Jim C

    March 31, 2012 at 2:04 pm

    Old Days by Chicago. The lyrics may be a bit Boomer-centric, but the harmonies …

  34. 34.

    Raven

    March 31, 2012 at 2:04 pm

    Beeswing RT

    I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love
    They were burning babies, burning flags. The hawks against the doves
    I took a job in the steamie down on Cauldrum Street
    And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was working next to me
    Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee’s wing
    So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
    She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
    She said “As long as there’s no price on love, I’ll stay.
    And you wouldn’t want me any other way”

  35. 35.

    Keith G

    March 31, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    “At 17” Janis Ian

  36. 36.

    Jewish Steel

    March 31, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    Mother by the Plastic Ono Band.

    It’s nice & direct.

  37. 37.

    Tom The First

    March 31, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    Lazy Old Sun by The Kinks.

  38. 38.

    eemom

    March 31, 2012 at 2:06 pm

    @c u n d gulag:

    Have you ever heard The Kingston Trio’s version of “A Very Good Year”? It’s hauntingly beautiful, vastly better than Sinatra’s overorchestrated schmaltz. Unfortunately I can’t find a video.

  39. 39.

    DougJ, Head of Infidelity

    March 31, 2012 at 2:07 pm

    Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

    Ain’t no doubt about it, we were doubly blessed.

  40. 40.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 31, 2012 at 2:08 pm

    Please, don’t mention that Nickelback song “Photograph”, not even as a joke. There’s nothing funny about an existential threat.

    Really, you’re doing a thread about songs, and you’re doing the “make sure it’s only songs I might like” thing? I just don’t understand why people do that with music. I would say it’s a get off my lawn thing, but people of all ages do it, and yet no one agrees on what singers fit into it.

    And yes, I happen to like the Nickelback song, though it makes me think of my brother more than me. As for me, I try not to think about my childhood except for when I need to tell my kids about walking to school uphill in the snow. A movie about me going back to my childhood would consist of me screaming for two hours.

  41. 41.

    thundermonkey

    March 31, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    That Summer Feeling by Jonathan Richman

    I, Jonathan 1992 version
    Jonathan Sings! 1983 version

  42. 42.

    eemom

    March 31, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    Paradise By the Dashboard Light. Tee hee.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    March 31, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    Slightly different, but I think “We’re Going to Be Friends” is a great song about being a child.

    Also, site redesign problem: I can read the mobile site on my new iPod Touch, but opening comments crashes it. I can switch to the main site and read comments that way, but the type is miniscule. Please fix.

  44. 44.

    eemom

    March 31, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    @DougJ, Head of Infidelity:

    heh.

  45. 45.

    Linkmeister

    March 31, 2012 at 2:11 pm

    The Marvelous Toy by Peter, Paul and Mary.

  46. 46.

    Nina

    March 31, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    Rainy Night in Soho, the Pogues.

  47. 47.

    Raven

    March 31, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    Nanci

    So Long Ago

    You’d gone off to fight the war when
    I returned from school
    I traded in my innocence when the
    Springtime came to bloom
    I married for my family… one night
    I dreamed of you
    And you were running from me in
    The rain down on Congress Avenue

    Where did we go?
    That long ago?
    So long ago

  48. 48.

    DougJ, Head of Infidelity

    March 31, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    I may set the spam filter to disallow use of the word “Nickleback”. Don’t tempt me

  49. 49.

    Nina

    March 31, 2012 at 2:13 pm

    @Cassidy: Yes way!

  50. 50.

    eemom

    March 31, 2012 at 2:14 pm

    Playground In My Mind

    [ducks and runs]

  51. 51.

    Linkmeister

    March 31, 2012 at 2:15 pm

    @eemom: It’s on The Capitol Years box set, but there’s apparently no video on YouTube. Rats.

  52. 52.

    RossInDetroit

    March 31, 2012 at 2:15 pm

    Elbow. Asleep in the back. Beautiful.

  53. 53.

    DougJ, Head of Infidelity

    March 31, 2012 at 2:15 pm

    @eemom:

    Candy yes, but I like it too.

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    March 31, 2012 at 2:15 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    And yet sometimes our American hobby weirdness is also awesome: 2012 Peeps Diorama Contest.

  55. 55.

    eemom

    March 31, 2012 at 2:16 pm

    @Linkmeister:

    And Puff! Don’t forget Puff, the Magic No It’s NOT About Smoking Dope Dragon!

  56. 56.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 31, 2012 at 2:18 pm

    @Southern Beale: I actually thought they’d make an interesting charm, former prosecutor that I am. But dollhouse police scene? That ain’t right.

  57. 57.

    Raven

    March 31, 2012 at 2:18 pm

    @eemom:

    Nanci Griffith
    Drive-In Movies And Dashboard Lights

    Mother can’t you hear your daughter crying
    Father wake up her youth is dying
    Her kids are grown… Husband’s gone away
    It’s a shame cuz she had such a lovely face
    Can’t you see she needed more
    Than, “Oh, what a pretty child”?
    You never taught her truth from lie
    All you told her was to smile
    In Texas back in sixty-nine
    It was drive-in movies and dashboard lights

  58. 58.

    eemom

    March 31, 2012 at 2:19 pm

    re Paradise By The Dashboard Light, I’ve always thought they should just play that in HS sex ed classes and “abstinence” would teach itself.

  59. 59.

    West of the Cascades

    March 31, 2012 at 2:19 pm

    @eemom: This. Puff pretty much sums up childhood innocence and its loss in adulthood. Probably no sadder song, either.

  60. 60.

    Raven

    March 31, 2012 at 2:20 pm

    Lucinda

    Lil Angel Lil Brother

    I see you now at the piano
    Your back a slow curve
    Playing Ray Charles and Fats Domino
    While I sang all the words

  61. 61.

    wrb

    March 31, 2012 at 2:21 pm

    @eemom:

    Wake Up Little Suzie

  62. 62.

    Mark

    March 31, 2012 at 2:21 pm

    Bob Dylan’s Dream

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTdZHC4McRU

    I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
    That we could sit simply in that room again
    Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
    I’d give it all gladly if our lives could be like that

  63. 63.

    PLH in NYC

    March 31, 2012 at 2:22 pm

    Green Day: I Was There

  64. 64.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 31, 2012 at 2:22 pm

    @DougJ, Head of Infidelity: Oh, please do! Can you set it to replace that word with ni-clang? On our soap forum if anyone types a vile slur for women, “cupcake” is displayed.

  65. 65.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 31, 2012 at 2:26 pm

    @DougJ, Head of Infidelity: I’ll find ways to work around it unless you fix the so-pill-m problem as well.

    Most of their music is kind of repetitive, but that one album was decent, and that song was pretty good. And it did fit some people I know: I wanted to relive the old days, but it seems everyone has moved on.

    And anyway, there are stations around here – Dallas – where the best thing on is Bruno Mars.

  66. 66.

    Nina

    March 31, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    Days, the Kinks.

  67. 67.

    John PM

    March 31, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    Everclear – My daddy gave me a name (then he walked away). I love this song because the melody is so upbeat but the lyrics are a downer. I listener to it a lot before I realized what they were saying.

  68. 68.

    Steved

    March 31, 2012 at 2:28 pm

    Paradise. John Prine.

  69. 69.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 31, 2012 at 2:32 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):
    As an example of different tastes, I know plenty of people physically opposed to Green Day (suggested by @PLH in NYC ).

  70. 70.

    Todd Dugdale

    March 31, 2012 at 2:32 pm

    Pink Floyd’s “Remember A Day”.
    Jackson Browne’s “A Child In These Hills”.

  71. 71.

    RSA

    March 31, 2012 at 2:33 pm

    Paul Simon, Kodachrome. (Wikipedia says that his original title was “Going Home”, but that wasn’t interesting enough.)

  72. 72.

    piratedan

    March 31, 2012 at 2:33 pm

    I’ve been partial to this one from the Spongetones

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcqV5PVEZWQ

    kinda surprised no one has mentioned Penny Lane yet, but hey, ymmv

  73. 73.

    Cassidy

    March 31, 2012 at 2:34 pm

    A little old school punk.

  74. 74.

    Johnny Coelacanth

    March 31, 2012 at 2:35 pm

    Hmmm, the only one that jumps to mind is the awesome “Obvious Child” by Paul Simon.

  75. 75.

    pragmatism

    March 31, 2012 at 2:37 pm

    @RossInDetroit: +1 for asleep in the back

  76. 76.

    Amir Khalid

    March 31, 2012 at 2:40 pm

    @Yutsano:
    I rather fancy this one, too.

  77. 77.

    gaz

    March 31, 2012 at 2:44 pm

    Just please don’t mention Nickelback ever.

    The only reason they are still around is people won’t shut up about them

    News flash: They fucking suck. In fact they’ve always sucked. And always will suck. And if you think they don’t suck then that is because YOU suck.

  78. 78.

    srv

    March 31, 2012 at 2:45 pm

    Another brick in the wall and Seasons in the Sun

  79. 79.

    Raven

    March 31, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    @gaz: Who cares? There are plenty of morons around who like fucking Three Dog Fuckin Night.

  80. 80.

    Kiwanda

    March 31, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    Another Kinks

    Oh, those happy days of childhood:

    Suzanne Vega

    Nirvana

    Pearl Jam

  81. 81.

    andybud

    March 31, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    If it doesn’t have to be a happy childhood, then I recommend “All Alone in an Empty House” by Lost in the Trees.

  82. 82.

    gaz

    March 31, 2012 at 2:49 pm

    I don’t really look back on my youth with any sort of fondness.

    It was hell.

    So I guess I’d have to say maybe ummm. Prison Sex by tool*?

    * I don’t actually like tool. Maynard is pedo, I just know it.

  83. 83.

    punkdavid

    March 31, 2012 at 2:50 pm

    I’ve been racking my brain for great songs about childhood, but mostly coming up with songs about youth (high school, young adulthood).

    Sugar Mountain – Neil Young
    The Circle Game – Joni Mitchell (which she wrote after hearing Sugar Mountain)
    4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) – Bruce Springsteen

  84. 84.

    Mark H

    March 31, 2012 at 2:53 pm

    Kodachrome

  85. 85.

    Arclite

    March 31, 2012 at 2:58 pm

    My folks were Little Feat fans, so I loved “Fat man in the bathtub” (cuz that was funny to an 8 year old) and “Rocket in my Pocket” (loving spaceships, and being too young to catch any innuendo).

    And I agree with @Mark H: Kodachrome and that whole Paul Simon solo album was awesome.

    Oh, and the Star Wars theme, of course.

  86. 86.

    Donut

    March 31, 2012 at 3:00 pm

    I dunno, started looking for a tune I was thinking of and came across these:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..re=related

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..re=channel

    And it’s my two favorite musicians together and all I can say is that I think I would have shit my pants if I could have seen this gig…

  87. 87.

    THE

    March 31, 2012 at 3:10 pm

    Ode to Billie Joe Bobby Gentry

  88. 88.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 31, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    @Raven: Good point. While it’s certainly an interesting thread with lots of good songs mentioned, who really care which bands [any given persons thinks] suck? There are perhaps more important things to get wound up about.

  89. 89.

    Watusie

    March 31, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    Dusty Springfield, Goin’ Back.

    You Tube with awesome Dusty footage.

  90. 90.

    Quaker in a Basement

    March 31, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    More Van:

    Brown-Eyed Girl
    And It Stoned Me

  91. 91.

    Robert Green

    March 31, 2012 at 3:13 pm

    @John PM: in addition to that everclear song, a GREAT song by a TERRIBLE band,
    i give you similarly crappy Blink 182’s magnum opus Stay TOgether For the Kids:

    t’s hard to wake up, when the shades have been pulled shut
    This house is haunted, it’s so pathetic, it makes no sense at all
    I’m ripe with things to say, the words rot and fall away
    What stupid poem could fix this home, I’d read it every day

    So here’s your holiday,
    hope you enjoy it this time, you gave it all away
    it was mine, so when you’re dead and gone
    will you remember this night, twenty years now lost,
    it’s not right.

    Their anger hurts my ears, been running strong for seven years
    Rather then fix the problems, they never solve them, it makes no sense at all
    I see them everyday, we get along so why can’t they?
    If this is what he wants, and it’s what she wants, then why is there so much pain?

  92. 92.

    dedc79

    March 31, 2012 at 3:14 pm

    Basically every song by the Hold Steady,but for starters: Massive Nights, Stevie Nix, Little Hoodrat Friend. Admittedly more focused on the teenage portion of childhood

    That’s the Way – Led Zeppelin

  93. 93.

    Nicole

    March 31, 2012 at 3:18 pm

    Oh! “Stones in the Road” by Mary Chapin Carpenter. Love that song.

  94. 94.

    c u n d gulag

    March 31, 2012 at 3:20 pm

    @eemom:
    Oh, I forgot!

    I have a lot of their albums, since I’m a big Folk Music fan.
    Frank, I have on cassette.
    And, sadly, my record player broke, so I haven’t played them, or a lot of others, in years…

  95. 95.

    Nina

    March 31, 2012 at 3:21 pm

    Another Brick in the Wall, Pink Floyd.

  96. 96.

    FridayNext

    March 31, 2012 at 3:26 pm

    Loudon Wainwright III’s The Picture

    Steve Goodman and John Prine Souvenirs

    And though SR has already mentioned it Terry Jacks’ Seasons in the Sun

  97. 97.

    Rock

    March 31, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    How about AM Radio by Everclear

  98. 98.

    Keith

    March 31, 2012 at 3:30 pm

    “Saturday Morning” by the Eels

  99. 99.

    RSA

    March 31, 2012 at 3:30 pm

    Surrender, by Cheap Trick, isn’t really a nice look back on childhood, but it’s pretty funny.

  100. 100.

    john f

    March 31, 2012 at 3:34 pm

    Born on the Bayou by CCR.

  101. 101.

    gbear

    March 31, 2012 at 3:34 pm

    I’ll go with ‘I Know Love Is All I Need’ by Rodney Crowell. That whole album, The Houston Kid is one of the best records about childhood and growing up that I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. Just a marvelous marvelous album.

  102. 102.

    TuiMel

    March 31, 2012 at 3:36 pm

    @Nicole:

    That’s the one that immediately came to my mind, as well.

  103. 103.

    Donut

    March 31, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    @Robert Green:

    An awful lot of kids will look back on Blink182 as their intro to rock. Taste is what it is and there’s no accounting for it, as the cliche goes, but there’s nothing wrong with kids liking the Blink back in the day.

    —

    Back to the point, when I first heard Green Day’s “Jesus of Suburbia,” in a lot of respects it rang pretty true for me, as a kid eho grew up in the same era.

  104. 104.

    Nicole

    March 31, 2012 at 3:47 pm

    I confess to weeping my eyes out listening to “Shades of Grey” by the Monkees. I also confess, I was 14 at the time.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 31, 2012 at 3:48 pm

    The Clash: Stay Free.

    Even better, The Alarm: Spirit of 76

  106. 106.

    Robert

    March 31, 2012 at 3:49 pm

    “Wasteland” by The Jam

  107. 107.

    Joel

    March 31, 2012 at 3:54 pm

    Slick Rick’s comeback album (after being released from jail) was pretty terrible, but this song was pretty great.

  108. 108.

    PaulB

    March 31, 2012 at 3:56 pm

    Puff, the Magic Draqon. The wonders of childhood and the pain of growing up.

  109. 109.

    wrb

    March 31, 2012 at 4:00 pm

    not a happy one but

    Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

    which caused me to think of

    Red Dirt Girl Emmy Lou

    My Little Town Simon and Garfunkel

    Hickory Wind The Byrds/Gram Parsons

    In South Carolina
    there’re many tall pines
    I remember the oak trees
    that we used to climb

    But now when I’m lonesome
    I always pretend
    I’m getting the feel
    Of hickory wind

  110. 110.

    ruemara

    March 31, 2012 at 4:05 pm

    I don’t get the nostalgia.

  111. 111.

    gluon1

    March 31, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    Somewhat outside the stylings of many Juicers, but Kam’s “Still Got Love 4 Um” is rather full of love and nostalgia.

  112. 112.

    kd bart

    March 31, 2012 at 4:11 pm

    All these comments and no one mentioned “Penny Lane” by The Beatles.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd-oLhJQne0

  113. 113.

    PurpleGirl

    March 31, 2012 at 4:13 pm

    Gee, nobody commented on the post title.

    (Somewhere in my Youth or Childhood was a ditty composed for the movie “Sound of Music” as a story bridge. It wasn’t in the song book of the play, as I remember it.)

  114. 114.

    BruceFromOhio

    March 31, 2012 at 4:28 pm

    Lakeside Park, Rush

    Deadmans Hill, Indigo Girls

    @John – A Motley Moose, @Joey Maloney: These, too.

  115. 115.

    FreeAtLast

    March 31, 2012 at 4:34 pm

    For looking back on your children’s childhood, I love
    Harry Belafontes’s Turn Around (Giving my age away, I know)

  116. 116.

    BruceFromOhio

    March 31, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    Ack, overlinked and moderated. Must’ve been the Indigo Girls did me in.

    Dead Mans Hill

  117. 117.

    pepper

    March 31, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    cats in the cradle by harry chapin.

  118. 118.

    Marcellus Shale, Public Dick

    March 31, 2012 at 5:09 pm

    @Donut:

    ironically blink 182 was when i realized i was getting old.

    i could have sworn the first time i heard “all the small things” that they mentioned then purdue quarterback drew brees. i know it sounds preposterous looking back on it, but after kid rock and puff daddy had just foisted their garbage on the culture at large, i didn’t imagine anything was too absurd.

  119. 119.

    asiangrrlMN

    March 31, 2012 at 5:18 pm

    Just ‘coz I really really really like this song and it kinda fits. Cat Stevens’ Father and Son.

  120. 120.

    Mike E

    March 31, 2012 at 5:43 pm

    Don Henley “Boys of Summer”
    Peggy Lee “Is That All There Is?”

  121. 121.

    Mike E

    March 31, 2012 at 5:45 pm

    @kd bart: In My Life!

  122. 122.

    Bob Munck

    March 31, 2012 at 5:56 pm

    @punkdavid:

    The Circle Game – Joni Mitchell (which she wrote after hearing Sugar Mountain)

    Also, according to Tom Rush, because a friend of hers had just turned 20.

    “So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
    Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
    There’ll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
    Before the last revolving year is through”

    She sent it to Tom on a cassette, apologizing to him for what bad shape it was in. He pointed out at the Birchmere last weekend that that boy is now 68.

  123. 123.

    W. Kiernan

    March 31, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    I used to wake up in the morning
    I used to feel so bad

  124. 124.

    Kyle

    March 31, 2012 at 6:07 pm

    Smoky Mountain Memories and Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton. Mary Margaret by Nanci Griffith.

  125. 125.

    red dog

    March 31, 2012 at 6:28 pm

    @Nicole: I still know all the words. We used to sing it in high school on the bus going to basketball games.

  126. 126.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937

    March 31, 2012 at 6:31 pm

    Tear Down the House – Avett Bros.

  127. 127.

    Irony Abounds

    March 31, 2012 at 7:21 pm

    @Nicole: Great Choice!

    Stones in the Road

  128. 128.

    meyerman

    March 31, 2012 at 8:01 pm

    Cheryl Wheeler – “I Know This Town”

  129. 129.

    kd bart

    March 31, 2012 at 8:02 pm

    Coal Miner’s Daughter-Loretta Lynn

  130. 130.

    zonker

    March 31, 2012 at 8:06 pm

    The Kinks “No More Looking Back” or “The First Time We Fall in Love”, I first heard those songs when I was in high school and absolutely adored them. I was such a strange little hillbilly.

  131. 131.

    Twisted Martini

    March 31, 2012 at 8:52 pm

    Jack and Diane by Mellencamp, Subdivisions by Rush

  132. 132.

    Kathleen

    March 31, 2012 at 9:05 pm

    @eemom: Agreed. Sinatra mentioned on a documentary that he was inspired to record the song because of the Trio.

  133. 133.

    Groucho48

    March 31, 2012 at 9:15 pm

    Roy Clark
    “Yesterday When I Was Young”

    “Yesterday when I was young
    the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue.
    I teased at life as if it were a foolish g ame,
    the way the evening breeze may tease a candle fl ame.
    The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
    I always built alas on weak and shifting sand.”

    Rod Stewart
    “Every Picture Tells A Story”

    “Spent some time feelin’ inferior
    standing in front of my mirror
    Combed my hair in a thousand ways
    but I came out looking just the same”

  134. 134.

    kuvasz

    March 31, 2012 at 9:23 pm

    gotta’ go with the Boss. Growing Up.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dy7RTicVr0

    I stood stone-like at midnight suspended in my masquerade
    I combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigade
    I was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutch
    I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and come out with my soul untouched
    I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd but when they said “Sit down,” I stood up.

  135. 135.

    kth

    March 31, 2012 at 9:27 pm

    “Strawberry Fields Forever”, Beatles

    “Thirteen”, Big Star

    “Helpless”, Neil Young (also “I Am a Child”, but that one’s not as good as “Helpless” or “Sugar Mountain”)

    “Rock N Roll”, Velvet Underground

  136. 136.

    kth

    March 31, 2012 at 9:38 pm

    also Guy Clark’s “Desperados Waiting For a Train” and Tom T. Hall’s “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died”, but it’s a pretty slippery slope from those songs to Walter Brennan’s “Old Rivers” (which I don’t hate but wouldn’t try to defend).

  137. 137.

    Ben Cisco (mobile)

    March 31, 2012 at 9:45 pm

    These always remind me of childhood:

    “Saturday In The Park”, Chicago
    “Horse With No Name”, America
    “Maybe Tomorrow”, The Jackson Five
    “Summer Madness” , Kool and the Gang
    “Goodbye Stranger”, Supertramp

    I was a weird kid.

  138. 138.

    Groucho48

    March 31, 2012 at 10:09 pm

    Can’t forget Night Moves, by Bob Segar, either.

  139. 139.

    Anton Sirius

    March 31, 2012 at 10:55 pm

    I hate Nickelback as much as the next guy, but the people claiming Seasons In The Sun is a good song should probably be imprisoned, as they represent a clear danger to the public. That monstrosity is a blight upon our collective unconscious.

    It’s also a song about how bittersweet it is to die or some shite like that, not a song reminiscing about childhood. It’s like saying Send In the Clowns is also about childhood because you went to the circus that one time.

    Unmentioned actually great songs about childhood: Tori Amos has some fantastic ones, particularly Winter and Icicle. Arcade Fire’s Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) is a pretty brilliant take on kid’s fantasy lives too.

  140. 140.

    krahbedad

    March 31, 2012 at 11:07 pm

    “When I Was a Boy” Dar Williams, “The Younger Generation” John Sebastian

  141. 141.

    Dr. Squid

    March 31, 2012 at 11:43 pm

    “It’s a Sin” Pet Shop Boys

  142. 142.

    inyake

    April 1, 2012 at 12:16 pm

    “My Block” by Scarface is solid and been getting some reps in my rotation lately. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHyqs0PoBgE

  143. 143.

    Robert

    April 1, 2012 at 5:08 pm

    “The Saturday Boy” by Billy Bragg.

    At Schoolkids Records in Ann Arbor in 1986, Billy Bragg told me I was “too cheery to be socialist.” I wish he could see me now.

  144. 144.

    punkdavid

    April 1, 2012 at 8:05 pm

    @Bob Munck:

    I don’t know who the friend who turned 20 may have been, but Neil Young claims to have written Sugar Mountain on his birthday (Im think he says 19, but the evidence is that it was actually his 20th) and at the time of his 20th birthday in November 1965, he was staying with Joni and her husband.

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