The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Without music, life would be a mistake.” For some of us, we can barely be without our earbuds or headphones because of the importance of music in our lives. Whether you’re listening to vinyl albums or scrolling on Spotify, having music ever-present is often an essential aspect of living our daily life.

Perhaps some of that sense of the centrality of music has to do with its connection to past memories. For so many of us, a specific piece of music allows us to remember and recall events that nothing else could conjure. As one expert has stated, “Music can open forgotten doors to your memory.” Whether it was the last song played at your high school prom or the first song played at your wedding, hearing that music in the present can release neurotransmitters in your brain like dopamine (part of your brain’s reward and pleasure system) or can reduce the production of the stress-producing hormone cortisol. Because we tend to listen to a piece of beloved music repeatedly, the details of the event which you associate with that music will be deeply encoded in your brain, allowing you to remember vivid details just by hearing the music once again.

In fact, since music seems to reconnect us to emotionally positive, self-defining moments in our past life, it suggests and validates its important therapeutic role. We know that music can be used to ease anxiety and to help in pain relief. There’s now even a company called LUCID which is looking to create digital music therapies to accompany existing therapeutic treatments. Given the benefits of listening to music and the value and pleasure it brings to our lives, you may wonder why many of us seem stuck in the music of our youth, no longer able or willing to consider more modern melodies or songs. This, in fact, is a phenomenon- that older people stop exploring new music. Why is that? There are lots of hypotheses for why that is. Could it be that as we age, we have less tolerance for loud or high-frequency sounds, so we are less adventurous in seeking out new music? Or, could it be that we no longer have the luxury of spending hours examining and listening to music as we may have done in our younger years? Researchers have found that music tastes tend to be set and shaped by the music we heard during our adolescence when emotions and hormones were raging through our bodies and making connections between music and life events. Perhaps, then, we are just comfortable with the familiar (though many would argue we are cutting ourselves off from new and exciting music opportunities alive today).

But if you want to stay in the past (musically speaking), it may be interesting to know what were some of the most formative songs of previous eras. One list of the top ten songs from the 1960s, at least in terms of popularity, identifies The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Temptations, and Sam Cooke as the leading “influencers” of their day. Another interesting list of songs that suggests we are stuck in our past comes from a recent SunLife “Cost of Dying” report that lists, among other things, the most popular song requests for a funeral. While only 25% of people surveyed knew what their loved ones would want to be played at their funerals, the most popular songs suggest that songs from days gone by are the most cherished, especially for such a serious occasion. Among the most requested? It seems to depend on whether this is your own funeral or the funeral of a loved one. But making the list of top 10 is everything from Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell,” along with the inevitable “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin. For the larger list, crank up your iPhone and click here.