Reference Back

I believe that this poem is about how music can take you back to a moment in time and remind you of what you were doing then. Therefore it seems to be a poem about time and ageing. I believe that the main themes in this poem are love, relationships and music.
One of the things that I found interesting about this poem was the rhyme scheme that Larkin chose to use. At the start there is a regular rhyme scheme with the end of each line rhyming such as "call" and "hall" and "you" and "to". This could suggest that the song produces such a vivid memory for his mother as she remembers it quite clearly. However, in the last stanza of the poem the first four lines do not have any rhyme which could suggest that the poem has gone into a more philosophical aspect rather than his mother's memory. By the last two lines the regular rhyme scheme is returned with "though" and "so" as the poem has reached an epiphany.
One thing that I found interesting about this poem was the use of the word "unsatisfactory". This could suggest that their age is unsatisfactory as he is looking back with with his mother who has now grown old. The house could also be unsatisfactory for the persona as he is still by his mother's side at his mother's house.
Another thing that I found interesting about this poem was the difference in what the song reminds them of. For his mother it reminds her of her youth and what she was doing at the time whilst for the persona it reminds him that he still lives at home with his mother as he would have been there when he first heard the song.
This reminds me of other poems by Larkin such as 'Talking in Bed' as it shows them talking yet separated and isolated whilst in 'Reference Back' it shows them together in time yet separated by the memory that the song provides them with.