"Hmm... What a mysterious song... It sounds so... familiar. It's almost as if something I've forgotten is trying to be remembered..."
— Medli, upon hearing the Earth God's Lyric in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
A long time ago, Alice heard a particular song. She may not have thought anything of it at the time, but one day, she hears the song again. It could be a coincidence, or Bob could be playing it to invoke this trope. Either way, the result is that Alice suddenly remembers what was happening the other time she heard the song.
One of these occurs when a character has some recollection of a specific song that's strongly tied to a now-forgotten memory. This memory could have been lost either through infantile amnesia or through simple head trauma and usually occurs in stories with an Amnesiac Hero. Oftentimes when this trope is in play, the hero in question realizes something about them that reveals that they aren't what they thought they were, either leading to an Oh, Crap! moment or a "Eureka!" Moment. In extreme cases, this can also likely be a Trauma Button. A Regained Memories Sequence is also highly likely. This trope also mostly happens in musicals, and can sometimes have the character sing the song to themselves as they try to decode it.
Truth in Television. The ability for music to trigger vivid, typically positive memories associated with it is well documented
in scientific literature, with this effect being particularly pronounced in people with Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and other forms of memory impairment. The exact reason for this is not fully understood by scientists, but current theories suggest that it factors into a variation of context-dependent learning, in which information can be more readily recalled when returning to the psychological context of when it was first encoded. In this case, music is a specific aural stimulus with strong emotional reactions tied to it, which contextualizes autobiographical events. When the song is heard again years later, it brings back the stimulus and the emotions, and with them, the memory.
For particularly astute viewers, this can cause a Musical Spoiler. It also often leads to The Reveal in some instances, so expect spoilers.
Compare Congruent Memory. Sub-Trope of Memory Trigger.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Go! Princess Pretty Cure: In Episode 21, Prince Kanata plays an old violin song from his childhood to Twilight, which is the final nail in purifying her and turning her back into Princess Towa.
- Honoo no Alpen Rose: Jeudi's memories are triggered whenever the Alpen Rose song is played, be it through Martha's singing or Leon's symphony.
- Pluto, In chapters 4-6, an elderly composer is frustrated by his inability to finish the melody of a song he only vaguely remembers from his childhood. His android butler, North #2, helps him by going to his home country and discovering the rest of the song. When he plays the song to the composer, it makes him remember that his mother was the one who sang it to him, which allows him to see her in a positive light again after spending his life believing she had abandoned him.
- In the Season 1 finale of Sailor Moon, Mamoru's brainwashing is cured after Usagi plays a melody from their music box, causing him to regain his memories of their time together.
Fan Works
Helluva Boss
- Apology Tour (finnthepony Prediction):
- The old man client has severe memory loss and can't even remember his house, but remembers that the kids are going to a concert after hearing a Verosika song on the radio.
- Subverted for the rest of the episode where Blitzo attempts to invoke the trope but the old man fails to remember anything useful.
Films — Animated
- Anastasia: Anya has lost all of her memories save for a melody that she doesn't know the origin of, along with the lyrics "Once Upon A December." This song was sung to her by her grandmother, who Anya was separated from after the attack on the Tzar and his family. Once Anya realizes that she's the missing Anastasia Romanov, she tracks down and eventually reunites with her grandmother, who then sings the song to her again.
- Barbie as the Island Princess: Ro is a human girl that was raised by island animals since she was a child, who found her among debris from an unknown incident. She's lost all of her memories except for a vision of a storm at sea and a song that she knows only some of the lyrics to. It's revealed at the end of the film that the storm Ro remembered was the day she fell off of a ship and drifted out to sea, only to be found by the island animals. The song was a lullaby that was sung to her by her mother, who happens to be the queen of a distant island. This discovery leads to Ro reuniting with her parents and reclaiming her title as princess, as well as finding out that her full name is Rosella.
- Coco: Mama Coco is a wheelchair-bound Scatterbrained Senior and Granny Classic whose (deteriorating) memories of Hector, the father who seemingly walked out on her as a kid and can barely remember, are the only thing keeping him alive in the Spirit World, which operates on a version of Clap Your Hands If You Believe. After traveling to the Spirit World and uncovering the truth behind Hector's disappearance and later death, great-grandson Miguel sings to Coco the Parental Love Song "Remember Me" Hector wrote for Coco when she was a girl before his untimely departure. This not only helps Coco remember her deceased father better but her living family members as well, whom she had also begun to forget.
- The Prince of Egypt: As the Egyptian soldiers carry out a mass killing of Hebrew children, baby Moses is taken by his mother to the river bank and sent adrift in a basket in hope of a better life. Before his mother lets go of him, she sings him one last lullaby, which he still remembers after being Happily Adopted and raised as an Egyptian prince. Upon their coincidental meeting, his biological sister Miriam tries to convince him that they're both siblings, but he brushes her off as being delusional. It isn't until she proves it by singing the lullaby that he realizes she's telling the truth, revealing his true heritage and causing him to spiral into a Heroic BSoD. Unlike other examples of this trope, this reveal happens relatively early on in the story. (And even before Moses runs into Miriam, he can be heard casually whistling the melody...he has a subconscious memory of it.)
- Steven Universe: The Movie: After Spinel and all three of the main Crystal Gems get all their memories removed via the Rejuvenator, the problem is fixed through various songs for each character. Amethyst gets "No Matter What," Pearl gets "Disobedient," which doesn't work, and "Independent Together," which does. Spinel gets "Drift Away," and Garnet gets "Isn't It Love?" when Ruby and Sapphire fuse for the "first" time and "True Kinda Love" to regain the rest of her memories and individuality.
Films — Live-Action
- Bloodshot (2020): Invoked. Every time Harting resets Ray to go and assassinate one of Harting's former co-workers, Ray wakes up without memory of what happened to him until he hears Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer", and suddenly he remembers the event that killed him and who did (or rather, the Fake Memories Harting implanted in Ray's mind) and goes off on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
Literature
- "The Snow Queen": Gerda sings the Danish Christmas Carol, The Most Graceful Rose is Found. As a result of remembering when she sang it to him, Kai immediately tears up and thus gets free from The Mirror Shards.
Live-Action TV
- Black Snow (2022): Cormack plays a mixtape that was left in the time capsule in order to get an insight into the mind of its author, Tasha, who was one of the suspects in the murder of Isabel Baker. As Tasha's not particularly bright, Cormack doesn't really believe that she's the killer, but when Isabel's sister hears the tape, she's suddenly taken aback, as she remembers hearing one of the songs with the exact same recording defect when Isabel called her on the night she died. It turns out that Tasha gave a copy of the mixtape to Anton Bianchi, and thus Cormack deduces that Anton must have been there, playing the tape in his car, when Isabel died.
- Cheers: When Rebecca goes to marry Robin, she storms out of her bachelorette party. Sam goes to her apartment to talk to her and she drunkenly tells him that she only wanted to marry him for his money. She tries to make it with Sam while singing "We've Got Tonight" but he escapes. The next day, Rebecca turns out to have blocked out her confession and continues her plan to marry Robin. A comment from Frasier and Lilith makes Sam realize that music can make people remember things and he sings "We've Got Tonight" to Rebecca. She remembers the previous night and backs out of the wedding.
- Crash Landing on You: Se-ri was able to remember she earlier met Jeong-hyuk in Switzerland because she remembered a unique piano melody she overheard there and retrospectively recognized the player as being Jeong-hyuk. The latter tells her this music was to honour his late brother.
- Doom Patrol (2019): Playing "They Don't Know" by Tracey Ullman is a guaranteed way to summon Karen, one of Jane's most dangerous alter-egos.
- In the first episode of Lexx, Kai's memories are restored when he hears the Brunnen Gi battle hymn playing from one of the brains of the previous incarnations of His Divine Shadow, and crushes the brain to get them back.
- Power Rangers:
- Power Rangers Ninja Steel: The amnesiac Levi realises he's Brody's long-lost brother when he hears Brody singing a song their father taught them, the lyrics reawakening his dormant memories.
- Power Rangers RPM: After Dillon realizes Tenaya 7 is his long-lost sister, he purposely invokes this by waiting for her out in the wastelands with his pocket watch, playing "The Farmer in the Dell" (the song she often whistles, which clued Dillon in to her true identity). Once she is drawn to him, Dillon plays the watch's second melody, which unconsciously unlocks her memories of her brother and of being human, before Venjix captured her and experimented on her.
- The Sinner: The events of the first season are set off when normal housewife Cora Tanetti happens to hear a song playing nearby and suddenly goes into a fury and murders a man nearby. It turns out that the man accidentally killed her sister years earlier, but Cora's memories of the event were suppressed until she heard the song, which happened to be playing the night her sister died.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: One episode reveals that Dax has a past life that was suppressed. The first thing she remembers from said past life was a song she (though back then it was he) composed.
- Star Trek: Picard: In "The Bounty", Riker, Worf, and Raffi sneak onto Daystrom Station, where they encounter the holographic Professor Moriarty as part of its security system, which sets off oddly musical chimes. Riker, the musician, recognizes the song as "Pop Goes The Weasel", the song Data was whistling when they first met in the TNG pilot episode "Encounter At Farpoint", deactivating Moriarty and the security systems, also uncovers another synth golem: Daystrom Android M-5-10, the last work of Altan Inigo Soong, which includes the personalities of all the Soong-type androids: Data, Lore, Lal, B4, and Altan Soong himself.
Podcasts
- Case 63 is about Time Travel and Alternate Universes. Season 2 includes multiple iterations of a song (called in the credits "Elisa's Song") being played for people who lost their memories, or for Alternative-Self Name-Change to catch them up on the memories of their alternate-universe selves.
Peter: I need you to memorize this song. What you're about to go through [time travel] will radically change the part of your brain that perceives time. The radiation left over from the trip will eliminate memories because the time in your memories will clash with your biological time.
Eliza: Well, that means—
Peter: —that you're going to forget everything. That's where the music comes in. It's been observed that music helps Alzheimer's patients. The brain stores memories of music and memories of events in totally separate areas. It— I don't need to explain it, you know what I'm talking about, so just listen. - Malevolent: In the first episode, Arthur's memories start coming back after playing a song on the piano in his office. This song becomes a recurring element in the series and is later revealed to be the song Arthur composed for his now-dead daughter Faroe. In season 3, Arthur makes a deal with Kayne to bring John back but without his memories. He appears to come back with his memories up until being separated from Arthur as the result of Arthur playing Faroe's song again.
Puppet Shows
- Fraggle Rock: In "Boober Gorg", Boober gets amnesia when a radish explodes out of a pot and hits him on the head. His friends try to invoke this trope by singing "I'm a Little Fraggle". Subverted when Boober, starting to sing, changes it to "I'm a Little Stewpot".
Boober: [singing] I'm a little stewpot...
Wembley: What?
Red: Uh-oh...
Boober: [singing] Laundry is my name.
Theatre
- A Very Potter Sequel: Downplayed. In "Those Voices", Harry is drawn to the Mirror of Erised when he hears familiar singing that Hermione and Ron can't hear. He sees his parents for the first time since he was a baby in the Mirror, not quite recognizing them, but knowing he knows them somehow because of the song. Sirius Black appears and explains those are his parents, and reveals he sees and hears the same thing because he loved Harry's parents like family, proving it by singing the same melody back to him.
Video Games
- Bloodborne has Father Gascoigne's music box. His daughter gives it to you in an attempt to stabilize him, since she knows he is prone to losing himself and the music reminds him. If used in his first phase, he will stagger for a second as the music does its job, but it only works for a few times, and used too much it will instead speed up his second phase, at which point the box will no longer work.
- Earthbound Beginnings: Queen Mary is glum because she can’t remember her song. She asks Ninten to find the Eight Melodies. Once they’re all found, Queen Mary remembers that she’s Ninten’s missing great-grandmother Maria and that she would sing the song to Giygas (called Giegue here) during his infancy.
- Final Fantasy X-2: When Yuna, Rikku, and Paine decide to put on a concert to raise the spirits of everyone in Spira, Yuna immediately finds herself humming a tune that she doesn't know the origin of, but somehow knows by heart. When the time comes for the concert it turns out the song she was recalling-1000 Words-was written by the spirit within her Songstress dressphere. Singing the song is what finally allows that spirit-a summoner named Lenne-to manifest again in the present and provide visions of her past and reveal the identity of the mysterious figure in the sphere Yuna found-her boyfriend and the villain of the game, Shuyin.
- Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse: The main character Ruka Minazuki suffered, during her childhood, from a condition named "Moonlight Syndrome", which affects the patient's memory. During her internment at Rogetsu Hall, her mother, Sayaka, had Ruka train a certain song in the piano, to keep herself focused and to protect her mind from memory loss. Years later, during the events of the game, she returns to Rogetsu Hall and keeps remembering the song her mother taught her. Sayaka's aim was twofold: indeed, to help Ruka keep her sanity, and to teach her the Moonsong Melody, which is used to pacify the game's main ghost adversary at the end of the game.
- Hitman 2: The level "Another Life" in Whittleton Creek has 47 not only eliminating former Soviet spymaster Janus and his bodyguard Nolan Cassidy, but searching for clues to help him, Lucas Grey, Diana, and Olivia find out where the Constant will be meeting so they may capture him and find out more about Providence. One of the way 47 can accomplish this is by playing a gramophone in Janus' house. Once Janus hears the music playing and investigates it, he will mention his next meeting with the Constant, confirming that aspect.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: When Link conducts the Earth God's Lyric in front of Medli, she begins playing it with her instrument (and as she does so, realizes how familiar it sounds to her), and then has a vision of playing it with her late ancestor, the Earth Sage Laruto. From that point, she realizes her duty as the new sage of Earth Temple, and Link then travels there with her. The exact same thing happens later on with Makar, the descendant of the late Wind Sage and the newly chosen sage of the Wind Temple.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: At the end of the Champion's Ballad, Kass's completed song causes Link to remember the day of the Champions's royal ceremony.
- Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: The Diminutive Guardian playing Zelda's Lullaby as it dies from its injuries causes Zelda to remember that she built the Guardian as a child and named him Terrako.
- In Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, the demon Kinmamon has lost most of their memory and only vaguely remembers a song from their homeland before a skidding truck sent them to Da'at. When revisiting Tokyo, it is possible to find an Okinawa girl who can get you in touch with her grandmother and fill you in with the missing part of the song, restoring a bit more of Kinmamon's memory.
- Stella Glow: Learning their corresponding passages of the Celestial Hymn makes the first fourth Witches (Lisette, Popo, Sakuya and Mordimort) regain the memories of their past lives, when they were the Witches trained by Elcrest (Alto's past incarnation) to defeat Mother Qualia. The fifth Witch, Hilda, has lived in both eras, so she still knows her part of the Hymn.
- In Xenogears, The Hero Fei gets a pang of nostalgia he can't explain upon hearing a song from an ancient music box Citan dug up, prompting Citan to briefly mention this trope. It's implied that the music box was made by Fei's previous incarnation Kim Kasim back in the Zeboim era, in anticipation for Emeralda's completion/birth.
Citan: Music is a mysterious thing. Sometimes it makes people remember things they do not expect. Many thoughts, feelings, memories... things almost forgotten... Regardless of whether the listener desires to remember or not.
Western Animation
- Futurama: In "Game of Tones," a destructive four-note tune ravages Earth. Fry vaguely recognizes the tune from his past, specifically from the day he got frozen, so the crew sends him inside his own memories from that day so he can try and identify the source of the sound. He only hears the tune right before he falls inside the cryogenic tube, accompanied by two new notes, which he replicates back in the present to contact the ship. It turns out to be Nibbler's friend Digby using the key fob to lock his spaceship, which he left on Earth; he's been using the alarm to locate the ship ever since.
- Goof Troop: In "Dr. Horatio's Magic Orchestra", Pete's Berserk Button is pressed every time he hears the jazz piece "When the Saints Go Marching In." The song reminds him of a failed band recital during his childhood.
Real Life
- This article explains how music can help people regain memories that were either suppressed or lost due to health difficulties. Since hearing is the most often-used sense to receive communication, music can provide information that grants a linking bridge between current and past memories; and it does so by activating the parts of the brain that are oriented towards knowledge and perception.
- Probably one of the better known examples of this trope is Marta C. González, a former ballerina with Alzheimer’s. Despite her debilitated state, when her carers played Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, she was instantly able to recall and re-enact the ballet moves she had mastered decades ago