Hear that? The sound of nostalgia.

This morning I listened to 3 Nights by Dominic Fike, a song that has the same effect of transporting me to the rooftop of the Spanish hotel I stayed at with friends in the summer of 2019 every time I hear it. I think everyone hears that one song that elicits a vivid response of memory; of a first love, of that one time that Dad drove them to get ice cream at the beach or down to something as simple as the concrete wall that you stared at whilst listening to the melody. I've heard the same opening beat of Fike's 3 Nights countless times and experienced the same Spanish sun every time I did, so this morning I was curious as to why this happens? Why do some songs have such strong associations to places, times and people for many individuals and does every one feel it to the same effect?

Studies have researched the effect that music has on the brain in some depth and the results elucidate the evocative response that you may feel towards a familiar tune. Not only does neuroimaging show the auditory cortex active during your jamming session, but surprisingly the images illustrate activity in the visual cortex too. This means that songs automatically attach themselves to a specific memory that your eyes registered in that moment when hearing the song again.

Furthermore, major activity in the hippocampus (storing memories) and the limbic system (controlling emotions) have been recorded when listening to a song. The fact that both of these crucial segments of the brain light up in synchrony means that the song will have far stronger memories associated with it because they also evoke a certain emotion that was being felt at the time of hearing the song. I remember the rooftop of the Spanish hotel so vividly because I felt such a strange sense of peaceful melancholy that I had seldom experienced prior to that moment, instantly causing the image of the rooftop to become attached to that emotion and as a result, the song.

Additionally, according to an article written by Pennsylvania State University, music also tends to retrieve implicit memories, or "memories stored in the unconscious, [that] can still be retrieved by our conscious minds" which tend to stay with us for far longer than it's opposite, explicit memories, such as the menial memory of the cereal you had for breakfast this morning that will be forgotten by the next day.

"Music tends to retrieve implicit memories"

Another interesting aspect of this memory recollection is that the cerebellum, the bit of the brain that controls movement and motor abilities, also plays a small role in making visual and memory associations with music. An example of this is that I remember Midnight City by M83, although having heard it in numerous contexts and situations, most vividly when watching the sunset on the train one evening and feeling a really pure delight. This underscores the interconnectivity of emotion, movement, memory and image when listening to those bopping beats. No wonder such rich emotions, such as nostalgia, are felt so meaningfully when we hear certain songs.