Are you one to wax nostalgic? Or, maybe, might you join us in longing for a moment, a feeling, a history we never experienced? The Germans, of course, have a word for it: sehnsucht. In Korean, it’s han, a soulful ache that can span generations. And in English? We’ve got anemoia (thanks to a somewhat newly made-up word rooted in Greek). Let’s unpack this beautifully complicated feeling through music, memory (real and yearned for), and imagination.
Christine kicked off the yearning train with Korean song “Haenim” by Kim Jung Mi. The song is about heading toward the smiling sun into an eternal place of warmth and joy. Sound too happy to be nostalgic? The song was released in 1973 in South Korea during the early years of Park Chung-hee’s dictatorship. Park was president from ‘63 until he was assassinated in 1979. Korea in the 70s was a time when artists faced censorship, surveillance, and the threat of persecution for any work deemed subversive. Kim Jung Mi uses her music to express a shared sense of hope and yearning.
Christina chose a song by Karen Dalton, “Something on Your Mind,” which was released in 1971. While Christina waxed poetic for wishing to be a Laurel Canyon girlie with her friends Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, it was on the East Coast that Karen was crooning with pals Bob Dylan and other folk heroes in Greenwich Village that kicked off her musical career. The nostalgia in the song alone isn’t what makes Christina feel so moved by this song–it’s Karen’s lack of commercial success or perhaps the failure to reach more ears that makes her blue. Not that record sales = success… but missing an opportunity to launch into the next tier of fame feels criminal for a powerhouse like Karen Dalton.
As always, we love to hear your musical picks based on our themes! Mosey over to the Stereothematica Instagram to share your nostalgia-inducing selection. We can’t wait to hear it.
Stereothematica 