The Smiley Smile Message Board

I was just ruminating on the fact that a lot of songs that have special significance in my life deal with the theme of innocence lost, or alternately, a wiser, older individual looking back on the time when they lost that innocence.  Not just in terms of sexuality, but also the more general, wistful sense of longing for something that no longer exists.  Here's an example of some of the what I'm talking about:

Pet Sounds - pretty much the whole thing
Look at Me, Look at You
Dubuque Blues
Under Branches (this seems to be a recurring theme in the self-titled Association LP too)
Wonderful
If I Ever Get to Saginaw Again
Run Around (Jefferson Airplane)
Laura's Changing
Lynn's Baby (Mark Eric -- another guy who understood these emotions)
She's Leaving Home
Goin' Back
The Worst That Could Happen
Requiem: 820 Latham
It's Too Late
Sometimes It Snows in April
Tattoo
Do You Remember Walter?
MacArthur Park


These are all amazing songs, and the writers seemed to have a knack for touching nerves with their lyrics that only the most gifted songsmiths were ever capable of.  The lyrics are evocative, and the melodies drive home the message with subtle force:  Things are no longer the way they were, and you can never go back. 

I'd like to make a cd of songs along these lines.  What else should I add?

A favorite album from my childhood.

"There was so much I didn't know.  And what I knew I didn't understand..."

jawdroppingly brilliant couplet, that.

Musty Dusty by Sagittarius.

Peter Sarstedt's "Where Do You Go To, My Lovely" would fit nicely into your list, I think.

I frickin' love that list, Jason. Those are some of my very favorite songs.

There HAS to be something by the Free Design to throw in there. There just does. If anybody hits on that particular nerve of innocence/innocence lost, its them.

And lord, how about "Roan Pony" off "Someday Man!!"

"Children's Waltz" is more of a kids song, but it is also about mysteries of the ages that transend old v. young. It is a web of riddles, such as "what makes the kitten mew?" "what makes the grandmother old?"

Darn if I know so few of those tities Jason.

These are country songs, but they also reminisce about times past:

Remember When - Alan Jackson
Back When - Tim McGraw
Class of '57 - Statler Brothers
Do you Remember These - Statler Brothers

Michel LeGrand's "The Summer Knows" from Summer of '42 has always hit that particular nerve with me, namely Barbra Streisand's version from the Barbra Joan Streisand LP.

"Songs to Aging Children Come", "Both Sides Now", "Circle Game", "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell

"Sugar Mountain", Neil Young

This is also one of my favourite themes.   I think innocence and its loss is a major theme in Brian Wilson's and the Beach Boys' music which has been reflected in their own life stories.  To me the early surfing songs have a similar resonance to the carefree idylls of youth found in William Blake's 'Innocence' poems such as 'The Echoing Green', Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' being my favourite book of poems.  But, as with Blake, the dark clouds of experience are never far away as in songs like The Warmth of The Sun and In My Room, reflecting the troubled young soul behind the otherwise apparently sunny music, and the difficulties which would eventually beset him.  'All Summer Long' is, for me, the song which really captures most perfectly both sides of The Beach Boys' early music - the jaunty, breezy evocation of a Californian teenage summer overshadowed by the "won't be long 'til summer time is through" refrain.  I think it was this quality which led it to be used over the closing titles of the film 'American Grafitti' where we are told what was to become of the film's young (fictional) characters - variously mundane and tragic.

I'm sure there are a bunch of Kinks songs about this...

Great suggestions everybody!  I can't believe I didn't think of "Musty Dusty" right off the bat...

"Sugar Mountain" is perfect for this too!  I will have to check out the rest of the songs you fine people have recommended.

Do Yoiu Remember Walter
Village Green Preservation Society
Picture Book
Village Green
Young and Innocent Days
God's Children
maybe Dreams
The Way Love Used to Be
20th Century Man
maybe Celluloid Heroes
Muswell Hillbillies

Need I go on?  I am sure I could.

I knew you'd come through, Jeff!

Queen - These are the Days of Our Lives

Lament of the Astral Cowboy ~ Curt Boettcher

Another Time/Collections version.........LOVE the lyrics!

"Everyone's Gone to the Movies" -- Steely Dan

A touching tribute to the long lost days of cinema.

HAHA!  ;D

"Back To The Old House" - Smiths
"Mr. Bojangles" - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
"Yesterday" - Beatles
"The Circle Game" - Tom Rush (I'd go with Tom over Joni for Bruce Langhorne's gorgeous guitar. Brings tears to my eyes every time.)
"Kentucky Avenue" - Tom Waits

"The Circle Game" .. one of my favorites of all - time