Songs That Shaped Me: Noah Cyrus’ Favorite ‘70s Songs

“Seasons in the Sun” is my first memory of music. You know how memories of a kid turn on like a light switch? It’s darkness beforehand, and then there’s the memory. My memory is just lights on and being in my dad’s music studio, which was also a like workout area. He had just a boombox and it wasn’t his music studio. It’s his place he would go and listen to his mixes, and it was just his little spot in the house. And he would go there and we would go and play. I remember him playing “Seasons in the Sun” and like asking me to sing it to people. That’s my entire first memory of music. As I grew, that song became even more meaningful to me. I had a resurgence of that song in my life recently in the past weeks. My tour manager of many years, Keith Albrizzi, he’s a legend to the industry and worked with me and Miley and artist friends of mine. He passed away on January 1st and he was battling ALS. He was in my life since I was eight years old. His son and I went to school together. Keith would drive me home from school, he and his wife would help us do our homework and I would always be at their house after school. He and I grew so much of a connection that when the time came, I asked him, “will you be my tour manager?” He’s just been an incredible guy through everything and when I lost him, I just kept hearing that line, “Goodbye to you, my trusted friend. I’ve known you since nine or ten. And so together we’ve climbed hills and trees.” All of that really reminded me of my relationship with him.

I love that song. I have so many memories of that song. Dylan, obviously, is a true singer-songwriter and been a fan of him through my dad and I just grew up with Dylan. That song has inspired many of my songs I’ve written with PJ. Yeah.

It was a song during my first breakup. I just remember being in my room super sad listening to this music and that song. It’s just another really brutally honest record and it’s a very undeniable Bob Dylan written song or written song. It’s definitely a song from childhood that I carried into adulthood with me and has been a long-time favorite.

Lyrically, the visual side that the lyrics give you is something that’s been an inspiration to me. My love of was a big inspiration for “Way of the World,” these Fleetwood Mac light rums, very flowy. That feeling of the weight lifting off of your shoulders. It’s always been a very comforting song to me, and, I don’t know. It’s a song that I’ve loved for a very long time and has recently been very inspirational to me and my songwriting, especially just speaking about nature and relating that to things in life.

“Landslide” was my introduction to Fleetwood Mac as a child and is a song that obviously is about growing and the pains of growing and getting older and that’s a common theme in my music. This song kind of inspired me to touch on those themes and speak about those because those are fears that I’ve had from a very young age. It’s said so honestly and so beautifully and it’s always been a song of comfort but also one of those songs that when I hear it, it makes me want to cry immediately.

My favorite song by Bob Seger, I have the album cover tattooed. The horses running in the water. Again, my dad loved Bob Seeger. He used to cover him whenever he was just performing in bars. He was singing “Night Moves.” I came across “Against The Wind” on my own, but I also learned that it was one of my grandma’s favorite songs whenever it released. And I learned that when she was passing away. It was my last memory of enjoying music with my grandmother. And that was recently. “Against The Wind” sonically, just like Fleetwood Mac, inspires that lightweight feel good song that you can also speak about a tender moment.

This was my parents’ song, and they would listen to this whenever they had first met. And through my childhood, I remember them dancing in the kitchen to this song and us playing it in the car and them singing it at the top of their lungs. It’s a beautiful memory that I get to keep within that song. I’ll always keep a really important and special time and part of my life within that song. It’s like a snow globe and I get to shake it and look back and look inside it and I think that’s really beautiful.

It kind of throws you off, within this group of country and classic rock records. But yeah, I just love the vulnerability and the conversation of it. It also carries this really cool production. It’s been a record that I found in my teen years. And I love this record.

Again, it’s learning to be visual with songwriting. This is a song that was very visual. You get a picture in your mind and that’s been a practice of mine over the years of being a songwriter is how visual can I be. Also, it’s just a beautiful story told about something that happened so long ago and it’s told in this modern way without being cliché. It’s one of the most beautiful songs, it’s up there for me with “Landslide” and “Seasons in the Sun.”

I love this song. The Pink Floyd production on this record really inspired this album and the more alternative sides of the record. It’s also just been a song that I’ve connected to through loss. I feel like it captures so much nostalgia as well. Whenever I listen to it, it just feels nostalgic. And that’s something that I am so fond of in music and getting that feeling. But any time you hear, “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl,” it’s just the most freeing thing. The fun part of loving a song is having those songs that are so memorable and so relatable and give you that feeling.

I love America, and my dad loved America. It was a big part of my time growing up in Nashville, riding around on four-wheelers and sitting in my dad’s side-by-side Polaris listening to this song and in his truck. So, I have a lot of nostalgic young memories to this song.

Neil, I have not had the chance to ever see live but that would be one of my dream people to go and see. I would love to go and see Neil. But Neil Young is one of my dad’s favorite artists. And “My, My, Hey, Hey,” has been a song played around through my entire life.

“Going to California” we recently had been playing this on tour. It was one of my brother’s favorite songs, and I remember him playing that. Also, I’ve written so many songs about California, and I feel like that are trying to mention California or Los Angeles or L.A. When people think of where I’m from in California they think of city. But to me, I think of the hills. I think of the mountains, the ocean, the desert and how beautiful California is. It’s a state of mind. I love that song so much, and it’s inspired me greatly.

Oh man, that’s mine and my dad’s song. That song has inspired me and it’s definitely inspiring my newer music. I definitely have been referencing some Johnny and June. That’s been an inspiration for myself and Orville [Peck] for future things. And my dad and I used to sing that song all the time. We still do whenever we’re together. We both just love that song so much. And Johnny and June, he would always put on everything Johnny and June.

I had to throw that one in, as it is literally one of my favorite songs of all time. Elvis and I share a birthday, which is happening tomorrow, us and David Bowie. So, I’m in good company. I chose specifically “Unchained Melody” because it’s such a beautifully written song no matter who was singing it. I love Elvis’ performance of it. I also very much love a newer version of it, which is Orville’s cover of it. There have been so many incredible artists to sing that song it’s hard to pick one. But I’ve loved that song forever and Elvis was never not around, whether it was in pictures or bobblehead sitting on my dad’s desk or records on the wall or playing in the air. My dad used to say that I was Elvis reincarnated. So, I think I have a very special relationship to Elvis.

You can’t get cooler and you can’t get better hair. That’s for sure. “Coat Of Many Colors” is my mom’s favorite song of Dolly’s other than “Here You Come Again.” She’s obsessed with that one too. But that’s an early memory of singing that song with my mom and experiencing her reminiscing about childhood herself. And that’s always been a favorite in our house.

I love the raw honesty of that song. It reminded me a lot of your question on if I’ve ever heard my inspirations in one of my songs afterwards. I definitely have heard that inspiration come through in a lot of the honest songs that me and P.J. have written about heartache and breakups. Dolly has been a huge inspiration to me and my dad and her have been friends for many years. So, her voice was around a lot and that carried a lot of weight.

I love the connection to her and nature through the song and the depiction. It’s been a song that I’ve loved forever, but also a song that has inspired me through the last couple of projects I’ve made. I found myself referencing it a lot in the studio this last time as well. And my favorite is the Trio of Emmylou, Dolly and Linda [Ronstadt]. That song is one of my favorites of hers and with “I Saw the Mountains” and some of the new songs that I’m writing and a lot of the more acoustic descriptive songs that connect back to nature they’ve definitely probably referenced that song.