Nostalgic Music Box

And the musical box continues to turn,
The candle in the window continues to burn,
But I know they're just memories
Like Christmas Past and You and Me

— Trans-Siberian Orchestra, "Music Box Blues"

For added atmosphere, play this music while reading on.

Specifically using music for nostalgic reminisces or flashback scenes, in the form of a music box. There's usually a fair amount of pining for lost innocence and/or love.

The opposite of Ominous Music Box Tune when the tune sounds much more sinister...though the two dovetail into each other quite often. See also Snow Globe of Innocence.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Nadja Applefield from Ashita no Nadja has a music box among her Memento Mac Guffins. It was made as a gift for her Missing Mom, then pawned away in Paris, and almost casually reached her. It later becomes very important, when we find a certain music sheet inside of it...
• Candy♡Candy: Candy White Andree gets a music box from her friend Alistair, nicknamed "the Box of Happiness". It becomes a Tragic Keepsake when Alistair dies in World War I.
• Code Geass has "If I Were a Bird", a music box tune which plays whenever Rolo's locket opens, as a symbol of his happy times with Lelouch. It also plays in full force during his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Cowboy Bebop has two. The first episode, "Asteroid Blues", opens with a music box track titled Memory. The two-part episode "Jupiter Jazz" features a music box as a plot point. The track used for the melody is Space Lion (organ version).
• Full Moon: Mitsuki learns of a song her father's band once performed called "Eternal Snow"^note  the show's 3rd ending theme. When she learns more about her mom and dad, among other things she finds a music box that plays the song's melody. From this point, the music box is played in almost every episode.
• Lady Jewelpet: Lillian finds a music box and its music makes her feel sad, but she doesn't understand why. It turns out to be because Lillian was a doll, and both her and the music box belonged to Diana, who cherished them both.
• Lost Universe tends to feature a music box whenever the main character talks or thinks about his past.
• Midori Days: Midori has a music box on her bedside table where her real body is lying comatose. Its melody is heard once or twice coming from the box itself when her mother opens it, but the rest of the time the melody is used in Midori's flashbacks.
• During many Naruto childhood flashbacks (most notably Hiruzen's), a music box rendition of Tenten's theme plays.
• Noir has a watch with a music box inside of it as a major plot point. The box's song often plays over a flashback that has more and more revealed as the series goes on.
• A recurring song during the Arabasta arc in One Piece was a music box theme that played during Vivi's flashbacks.
• In the 1978 movie Ringing Bell, Chirin finishes crying over his mother's death, he starts to angrily march out of the sheep stable and heads to the mountain that Woe resides. A music box variation of the film's theme song is heard complete with military style drums while Chirin is marching out of the stable.
• The Rows of Cherry Trees: Yukiko's late father gave her one and she often plays it to remember him.
• Sailor Moon; there's a music box locket in the first season of the anime. This was inspired by a similarly shaped watch from the manga.
• Simoun: Aaeru has a wind-powered music box given to her by her grandfather. The music it plays is actually a flashback on a cultural scale, though, as "The Door To A New World" is a song passed down from the earliest generations of Simoun sibyllae.
• Speed Grapher: When alone, Suitengu obsessively plays a music box with a melancholic tune and thinks about his past. This ultimately leads to a flashback indicating this is the only possession left from his happy childhood, which was destroyed by loan sharks. Making things interesting, Saiga, the hero, independently whistles the same tune, foreshadowing the fact there's a connection between himself and Suitengu.
• The Steins;Gate anime has a heartbreaking music box reprise of its main theme, Gate of Steiner, played in the later episodes as Okabe tries to restore the innocence of the lab's early days before everything went to hell. More specifically, it echoes his memories of Mayuri.
• The Vision of Escaflowne has a nostalgic music box, Millerna has a flashback montage to it.

Films — Animation

• Anastasia: The music box given to the young Anastasia as a gift. It ends up in the possession of Dimitri, while the accompanying locket functions as an Orphan's Plot Trinket for the amnesiac Anya.
• The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning: King Triton gives his wife a music box as a gift. She is then killed while trying to save it from being crushed. Later, Ariel finds the music box, and its haunting melody helps persuade her father to lift the ban on music by reminding him of his late queen.
• The animated short film "Regifted" by Eaza Shukla is about a sentient Fabergé egg (although the humans presumably don't realize it's sentient) who keeps getting regifted to other people because they all consider it useless and tacky. Finally, the egg is left at a thrift shop with other sad-looking toys and knick knacks. Hopelessly depressed, the egg jumps off the shelf, smashing its face against the floor. And only then does the egg automatically open up, revealing a tiny carousel playing a sad music box tune, which continues to play over the credits.

Films — Live-Action

• Batman & Robin: Mister Freeze has turned an alarm clock, a glass jar, and an ice sculpture of his wife into an impromptu music box. He stares intently at it turn but can only manage a single tear (that quickly freezes and sublimates given his icy demeanor).
• The end credits theme from Child's Play (1988) combines a music box with an Ethereal Choir in order to evoke the loss of childhood innocence.
• Cries and Whispers: A music box is heard when Maria is wistfully contemplating her old dollhouse and the portrait of her dead mother.
• For a Few Dollars More used two pocket watches, one belonging to Mortimer and the other carried by Indio, that played the same haunting melody, which was incorporated masterfully into the Ennio Morricone score. As it turns out, Indio's watch once belonged to Mortimer's sister, whom Mortimer seeks to avenge.
• Pirates of the Caribbean has Davy Jones and Tia Dalma's music box lockets, which are the only things shown to be able to drive the love-hardened vindictive sadist to tears.
• To Kill a Mockingbird has a music-box-like theme at the beginning. Composer Elmer Bernstein said he wanted the music to sound very pure and innocent.

Live-Action TV

• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "In Throes of Increasing Wonder...", one of the few items that Lestat de Lioncourt had brought over from France is an ornate music box which carries a lot of sentimental value for him. The tune it plays was written by Lestat and it's dedicated to his First Love Nicolas.
  Lestat: I composed it for a young violinist I once knew, a boy of infinite beauty and sensitivity.
• Lost: Rousseau has a broken music box that Sayid fixes for her. It reminds her of her husband and lost child after she's been alone on the island for sixteen years.

Music

• Emilie Autumn's "Gothic Lolita" opens with a music box that grows more and more distorted until the true song begins. The song's theme is lost innocence, so the music box sets a spooky tone that fits with the rest of the song.
• Ayumi Hamasaki's song "HANABI" opens with a music box, which continues to play as the song goes on. The song lyrics speak about a loved one who has died.
• Siouxsie and the Banshees' 'Mother' on their 1979 'Join Hands' album. The eerily decelerating music box plays 'Oh Mein Papa' whilst the dual lyric details a love/hate relationship with the narrator's mother.

Theatre

• Anastasia, like the movie it's adapted from, features the Orphan's Plot Trinket music box given to the title character as a child; the entire score was expanded or re-written to make the score more fitting for a fully-fledged stage musical but not only did the music box's theme stay the same, it became a Leitmotif that reoccurred several times and in several songs throughout the show.
• The monkey music box in The Phantom of the Opera. It comes up in the prologue as the first item associated with Christine and what happened in the bowls of the opera. The tune it plays is "Masquerade", the opening number for the second act. (In that big dance with massive decorated costumes, some dancers wear monkey costumes in reference to it.) It is used as a nostalgic music box during the finale, when it begins to play down in the Phantom's lair and he, despairing, remembers the words of the song: "Hide your face so the world will never find you."

Video Games

• In the second of the Arc the Lad series a nostalgic music box theme is played whenever Elc has any dreams of his time in the White House
• On the "The End" screen of Baten Kaitos, a music box rendition of the game's main theme plays.
• Game Over screen in BlazBlue has a short sad music box music. Later (especially in Continuum Shift) promoted to flashback music. Also turns out to be theme song of an important unplayable Saya character with even more symbolism. Also has a vocal version in one of the albums but not in the games.
• The Total Results screen after the credits of Devil May Cry has a pretty nostalgic music box version of Eva's theme, titled "Pillow Talk", playing in the background.
• EarthBound Beginnings: You learn the first part of the game's version of the Eight Melodies from a music box that was in the possessed doll you just fought. Also, the ending tune starts and ends with a music box rendition of the Eight Melodies.
• Fable II starts with you in your childhood, trying to buy a magical music box. The music box's theme sometimes appears in the game's score, particularly during flashbacks and dreams of your childhood. It's also the weapon you use to defeat Lucian.
• Final Fantasy
  • Final Fantasy V: Bartz has a music box in his old home in Lix. Never mind that he's listening to it and recalling the night his mother died while a squatter bard sits there impassively . . . it's still a pleasant tune.
  • Final Fantasy IX has a phonograph music box at the Inn in the Black Mage Village. If you have certain special items purchased at the auction house in Treno, it will play pieces from earlier Final Fantasy titles corresponding to the special items.
• Used frequently in the Klonoa series. Fitting, considering the games' theme of dreams:
  • Door to Phantomile and the Video Game Remake:
    • The main menu music is a relaxing tune played on what sounds like a cross between a music box and bells.
    • "Grandpa's Chair", the Leitmotif of Klonoa's kindly grandfather, is a very calming, yet sad, music box song. It plays again, only this time, slower, when Grandpa is dying after Joka's ambush.
    • A music box is also used for many short jingles, such as when Klonoa and Huepow first discover the magical Moon Pendant.
  • Empire of Dreams:
    • A slow, whimsical tune is played for the main menu music.
    • A much sadder music box is played during Emperor Jillius' Disney Death.
• Yasunori Mitsuda loves this trope, as the nostalgic themes in his best-known games all have music-box versions of the main theme. In fact the music box themes almost all have the same track name: Kokkoro (Heart or Soul).
  • Chrono Trigger's nostalgic theme is eventually expanded upon in at least one of the endings, in a song called "To Good Friends" - it starts off identically but eventually segues into a fully-orchestrated arrangement of the same theme, and it is beautiful.
  • Xenogears even had a room-sized in-game music box for this style of music to come out of. It's implied that Kim Kasim had it built back in the Zeboim Era to celebrate Emeralda's creation/birth.
• A music box version of the Shadowlord's theme plays in NieR when the Shadowlord is on his final bit of health. It's meant to represent how at this point he just wants to die.
• Romancing StellaVisor, a Fan Remake of Hoshi wo Miru Hito, incorporates a mournful-sounding music box coupled with violins in the Sad Battle Music of Marionette!Aine.
• Pokémon:
  • A music box version of N's Leitmotif plays in Pokémon Black and White when you discover his bedroom/playroom in Plasma Castle. It doubles as an Ominous Music Box Tune. N's theme itself was allegedly based on the idea of a music box, reflecting his nature as an Manchild. It doubles as an Ominous Music Box Tune.
  • The HeartGold and SoulSilver version of Cinnabar Island's theme is one of these, in stark contrast to the upbeat original. Considering the town has been almost completely destroyed in a volcanic eruption, it's nothing if not fitting.
  • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky has a nostalgic theme played on a music box that plays in scenes where you and your partner are feeling especially tender, as well as when you're about to go to bed for the night.
• Professor Layton:
  • In Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, one of these plays during The Reveal. In this case, the music isn't the symbolic part, it's the Elysian Box itself, which finally fulfills its original purpose of carrying a message from Anton to Sophia and back. Of course, it's less on the nostalgia and more on the what could've been. The music box track, Iris, is used a few minutes later in orchestrated form for the end credits.
  • In Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, a music box tune plays when Henry remembers the time when he and Randall first became friends.
• There's a music box in Quest for Glory IV belonging to the old man, Nikolai, who is searching for his wife. If you turn on the music box while in Nikolai's house, the old man will wake up and ask for Anna, thinking that she has come home.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Paper Mario features this in both Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Super Paper Mario with specifically designated "Memory" themes that used a music-box-like effect when a particularly sad event was happening.
  • One or two of the minigames present outside the main adventure of Super Mario 64 DS (such as the Loves Me Not game) have a music box arrangment of the water level theme from the original game play in the background.
  • The Lumas' theme from Super Mario Galaxy is a bittersweet music box tune that plays when Rosalind reads the Lumas the story of how she came to become their queen when she was a child. Bonus points for being played as the universe is crushed into a supermassive black hole.
  • Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island has an opening theme that sounds as though it is being played on a music box (it even slows down at one point, and has to be rewound). This theme reappears in Yoshi's Island DS. This is fitting because the games are largely about taking care of baby versions of Mario and friends.
• In Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Lars carries his late wife's music box as a memento. The track played is titled Box of Sentiment. The melody is later orchestrated in Emotion and Absence of Mind.
• Tail Concerto has a music box-like piece playing when you look at the photographs you collected.
• Undertale has two music box-style themes on its soundtrack:
  • The minor-key "Waterfall" theme plays through many of the areas of Waterfall, particularly those with the inscriptions and Echo Flowers recording the monsters' memories and unfulfilled wishes.
  • Another such motif, "Memory," can be heard coming from a certain statue in Waterfall. You have to play the tune on a piano in order to access a secret item. The leitmotif it plays, which receives a more upbeat remix in the final area as "His Theme," belongs to Asriel Dreemur, Toriel and Asgore's son, the former identity of Flowey, and the True Final Boss of the Pacifist route.
• ULTRAKILL plays a music box version of "The Fire is Gone" whenever V1 reads a Testament at the end of a Secret Level. It serves to outline the tragedy of God himself ruining creation by creating Hell in an impulsive, hasty decision after failures to create a man without free will and being unable to fix it.
• The title screen of Xenosaga Episode III plays a nostalgic music box version of its Award-Bait Song, "Maybe Tomorrow."

Visual Novels

• The track Ewige Wiederkunft from Dies Irae features a lonely music box and is usually reserved for scenes of reminiscence or sadness.
• Dōkyūsei uses one such track, titled "Graduation", as its main menu music. This is quite fitting, since Dōkyūsei is fundamentally a story that plays on nostalgia for summer vacations back in one's youth, as well as the game itself being a remake of a classic game that many players would probably have fond memories of.
• Sad and sentimental scenes with Ilya in Fate/stay night (including her flashback as she lies dying in UBW) uses a music-box version of "Die Lorelei", a German folk song, as background music. It's used to underline Ilya in her innocent and humanizing moments, which becomes a source of Lyrical Dissonance since the original song is about a siren who uses her beautiful song to drown sailors.
• In Katawa Shoujo, this is the present you get for Lilly. It and its tune become a two-frame Chekhov's Gun in Lilly's Good End.
• The Muv-Luv series of visual novels has A World To Protect, a rearrangement of the main theme. It first plays in Unlimited when Takeru realizes that his memories of his home world and Sumika are fading due to him "going native", it then plays in Alternative when Takeru, suffering from PTSD, breaks down and cries in Marimo's lap while the latter comforts him.
• Symphonic Rain has several music box versions of the opening and ending theme playing during especially poignant moments.
• Umineko: When They Cry has the melancholy Worldend for the inevitable deaths. When They Cry, indeed.

Western Animation

• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated whenever the locket or something related to the original Mystery Incorporated appears onscreen, referring to their Innocence Lost.
• Invoked in The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Substitute" when Homer opens a music box to provide background music while talking to Lisa about loss.
• Plays in Storm Hawks when Big Bad Master Cyclonis is restoring an old photo of herself as a child.

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