Nostalgia, Song and the Quest for Home

Production, Text, Reception

Paul Carr (University of South Wales, UK)

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Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury Publishing USA
04 September 2025

Theory of music & musicology; Rock & Pop music; World music; Nostalgia: general

What does it mean to evoke a sense of home through song, or intentionally utilize nostalgia in songwriting?

This book explores a neglected aspect of scholarship surrounding the study of song—its relationship with nostalgia and notions of ‘home,' in the broadest sense. Each essay in this collection studies these factors from the perspective of ‘production’, ‘text’ and ‘reception,' either individually or in combination. Making use of frameworks such as Marxism, critical theory and hauntology, this is a propulsive study of the global cultural phenomena of nostalgia music.

From the perspective of 'production,' authors explore nostalgia as technique and the commercialization of nostalgia. The section focused on 'text' features case studies of nostalgic songs or albums about home and musicological analyses of the nostalgic trends of songwriters, songs, albums. Finally, the 'reception' essays facilitate examination of nostalgic narratives from the subjective and varying perspectives of audiences or listeners.

Whether identifying with Bruce Springsteen or ABBA, or hailing from Ukraine or New Zealand, the featured music speaks to a listener's sense of home and self. From music of the Serbian diaspora and Country 'n' Irish music, which speak of a nostalgia for a homeland (or time) to which one cannot return, to a song performed in the Wuhan dialect for listeners who could not leave their homes during COVID containment, these collected essays feature the music of artists whose audiences have found and clung to a version of themselves.

Edited by: Paul Carr (University of South Wales UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Country of Publication: United States [Currently unable to ship to USA: see Shipping Info]
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 516g
ISBN: 9798765124338
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 04 September 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Paul Carr is Professor Emeritus in Popular Music Analysis at the University of South Wales, UK. His research interests focus on musicology, the music industry and pedagogical frameworks for music related education. His most recent publications include co-editing The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rock Music Research (2020), an economic assessment of the Welsh Music Industry (2022) and editorship of a special double edition of the Journal of World Popular Music on the impacts of Covid-19 (2022). He is also an experienced performing musician, having toured and recorded with artists as diverse as The James Taylor Quartet and ex-Miles Davis saxophonist Bob Berg.

Reviews for Nostalgia, Song and the Quest for Home: Production, Text, Reception

In Nostalgia Song and the Quest for Home, Paul Carr has curated an impressive range of essays which seek to address the relationship between song, nostalgia and home. Chapters move seamlessly between the personal, regional, national and spiritual via the analysis of a range of international exemplars. This book presents an original and innovative contribution to popular music studies. * Robert Edgar, Professor of Writing and Popular Culture, York St John University, UK * Whether it’s a brooding Christmas classic, Bob Marley reminiscing about Trenchtown, or a Motley Crü road ballad, we’ve all got our choice examples of songs about home. The concentrated attention to this topic within a single, edited volume is a most welcome and useful addition to music, literary, and pop scholarship alike. Paul Carr’s three-chapter introduction establishes a rich and knowledgeable foundation for this tradition, helpfully theorizing, contextualizing, and subdividing it, before giving way to what are richly diverse (and often timely) case studies by the collection’s contributing authors. Readers can be sure that “home” is here accounted for clearly yet complexly, across and within Carr’s established framework of “production, text, and reception.” There are parts here to feast on separately, or, for those like myself, who use “home” as a thematic teaching tool or as a research topic, to digest as a multi-course whole; one comes away full and yet hungry, with a stimulated appreciation for just how entangled are the experience of nostalgia and popular song. * Ryan Hibbett, Associate Professor of English, Northern Illinois University, USA *