My brother texted me with a podcast suggestion last week.

He told me his friend had recommended it to him, and he thought I’d enjoy it.

“Nostalgia city,” he wrote. “The sports and 80s references with the music. Very good.”

I know that when Matt takes the time to pass along something good, you’d best take his advice.

So I listened to the episode of ‘60 Songs That Explain the 90s’ that he was recommending - which happened to be “Only Wanna Be With You” by Hootie and the Blowfish from January 11, 2023.

Matt summarized it pretty well. Sports references with the music. Very good. Very nostalgic.

But I’ll go into a little more detail.

I should have realized when I saw that it was a podcast from The Ringer that there would be a lot of what I liked mixed together here. Though I don’t spend much time with The Ringer, I know that it intersects with a lot of things that hit home with people my age.

Toys I played with when I was a kid, sports events that played a role in the host’s life (not the exact same ones that impacted my life, but I definitely get the idea), and music we’d have been listening to at the time - that’s how everything in this episode is set up.

The host is very easy to listen to, and he is a very good storyteller, using music clips to help illustrate the story. (And a very satisfying-to-the-ears click of a tape deck to introduce each music clip.)

(I think a lot about associations I have with certain songs. I heard a Lotd Huron song the other day that made me think about the summer I was training for the Chicago Marathon - when I ran every street in Framingham. I listened to that album one early, hot Saturday morning and I have a distinct memory of some of those lyrics as I passed by the Framingham Y. Also, whenever I hear the Cranberries it makes me think of playing an NHL video game against my brother in our bedroom back in 1994 or 1995 and listening to the radio.)

The podcast is basically three segments - the introduction, which is an overview that sets up this episode - from the very general events of childhood (is this different every episode? I assume so but it’s amazing if he goes into this kind of detail for every show) to the very specific, in this case, “Only Wanna Be With You.” Then there’s the meat of the episode about the song, and then a Q and A conclusion. (The Q and A - with a music reporter - started out flat and I thought it was going to end the episode with a thud but it picked up pretty well.)

The weird thing about this particular episode - and not the reason Matt suggested it to me - was the other connections to my life right now. Hootie & The Blowfish formed in Columbia, South Carolina at the University of South Carolina, and he recommended this right before we went down there a couple of weeks ago.

That geographic connection was one thing - the other was this song coming back into my life this year - after I listened to all that Bob Dylan. Remember when I listened to “Blood on the Tracks” and heard the line Darius Rucker quotes? That was exciting, and that comes up in this podcast.

I don’t want to listen to more of these episodes and be disappointed if they don’t live up to this first listen - it was that good. But I could see myself popping them on based on the songs they explore - there are a lot of good ones from that era that are part of the series.

I wasn’t done with Hootie & The Blowfish though - this podcast inspired me to listen to their hit album again, and I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow.