4 Hit Songs From 1973 That Will Teleport You to Your Younger Years

If you’re in the mood for time travel, you need not source flux capacitors and zany sexagenarians named Doc. Listening to music from a certain time in our lives is just as effective at transporting us back to yesteryear as the DeLorean was in Back To The Future. In fact, even if you weren’t around to see these hit songs from 1973 first come out, they have a way of conjuring nostalgic feelings about our former selves, the passing of time, and the way we often romanticize the past into something better than it really was.

“Time” by Pink Floyd

Though not technically a single from the album, we’ll give “Time” the same “hit” status as the record-breaking album on which it first appears, Dark Side Of The Moon. Pink Floyd’s stunning track about the passing of time can instantly transport the listener to the former year of their choosing. The older we get, the harder some lines are to swallow. “Then one day you find ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.” 

“Dancing In The Moonlight” by King Harvest

Music has a way of teleporting us to different times we might not have even experienced firsthand, and the scene that King Harvest paints in “Dancing In The Moonlight” is certainly a pleasant one to adopt. This classic 1973 track is about having a good time without a care in the world, which was no small feat during such a tumultuous decade of global history. (Case in point: the song itself was written amidst tremendous trauma.) “Dancing in the moonlight, everybody’s feeling warm and bright, it’s a supernatural delight.”

“Live And Let Die” by Paul McCartney & Wings

Whether you’re a Wings fan or a James Bond fan, “Live And Let Die” was among the most inescapable hit songs of 1973, that’s for sure. Paul McCartney wrote the song for the 1973 Bond film of the same name, starring Roger Moore as the titular MI6 agent. Even if you weren’t around in 1973, this song has a way of shifting our focus back to the present with its poignant lyricism and theatrical string arrangement. “When you were young, and your heart was an open book, you used to say ‘live and let die.’”

“Cat’s In The Cradle” by Harry Chapin

Harry Chapin released one of the most emotionally devastating songs for baby boomers with his 1973 hit “Cat’s In The Cradle”. Baby boomers’ parents were primarily from the Silent Generation, who weren’t exactly famous for their emotional presence and vulnerability. As baby boomers grow older, songs like “Cat’s In The Cradle” make them think not only of their parents but also of themselves as parents, their children, their children’s children, and the ever-spinning wheel of time.

Photo by Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images

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