5 Songs From 1975 That Are Still Like an Emotional Gut-Punch Five Decades Later

Trends, technology, and musical styles may change. But emotions have remained consistent throughout the history of humankind. And that’s why some songs that came out five decades ago in 1975 deliver just as strong an emotional gut punch as they did back then.

Here are five that don’t just tug on the heartstrings. They yank on them until you can feel it deep behind your sternum.

“Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd 

Even if a listener doesn’t know the tragic backstory of Pink Floyd founding member Syd Barrett, to whom Pink Floyd dedicated its 1975 album Wish You Were Here, the title track is a devastating blow to anyone with a beating heart. Whether the song makes you think of a platonic friendship that’s grown apart, a family member who has passed on, or a lover who left, the song delivers melancholic nostalgia in a way that still hurts, even five decades later.

“Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac

The older a person gets, the deeper “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac cuts. No one ever really plans on getting older. We just move through the world as calendar year after calendar year passes us by until, suddenly, memories of our youth become distant and foggy. Time really does make us bolder. But that’s only because we’re finally able to see the bigger picture in a way that seemed unattainable when we were green and anxiously awaiting our future.

“You’re A Big Girl Now” by Bob Dylan

All of Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks is a gut punch, technically. But “You’re A Big Girl Now” stands alone as a particularly gut-wrenching offering out of the 1975 songs canon. People change and drift apart, and that’s an inevitability that never quite gets easier. Still, we move on. “Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast / Oh, but what a shame if all we’ve shared can’t last / I can change, I swear / See what you can do / I can make it through / You can make it, too.”

“At Seventeen” by Janis Ian

Anyone who has been an awkward, shy, and uncomfortable teenager can relate to the devastating lines of Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen”. Your teen years often teach you some of the most painful lessons you’ll endure in this lifetime. And Ian captured these heartbreaking revelations with a kind of clarity that instantly transports the listener back to the first time they realized they were being bullied. “It was long ago and far away / the world was younger than today / when dreams were all they gave for free / to ugly duckling girls like me.”

“Diamonds And Rust” by Joan Baez

Closing out this list of emotionally devastating songs from 1975 is Joan Baez’s “Diamonds And Rust”, a song she wrote in painful detail about Bob Dylan while still universally capturing what it’s like talking to an old flame and realizing you don’t really recognize the person they truly are. And maybe, just maybe, you never did. “Well, I’ll be damned, here comes your ghost again / But that’s not unusual / It’s just that the moon is full, and you happened to call.”

Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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