Summer Music
CAUTION
(If grown men in short shorts offend you, and I can see where it might, then just click on out of here now and save both of us the grief)
I have been meaning to do a "music of summer" post since last spring but the more I pondered just what makes good summer music the more it just seems totally subjective.
I can't recall anything particular good from my youth that I can identify as summer music. It was a dry period after all the good stuff from the 60's was over. The "Disco Era" music of the time I still hate with a passion that burns like a thousand suns. I really do feel I was robbed of part of a decent youth. But enough about that.
Posting up something from the Beach Boys is just too easy. It's not that the Beach Boys don't have musical merit it's just that their best stuff never got air play and so they are forced by fans and promoters to sing "Surfer Girl". Forever.
This one came on the radio the other day and struck me as maybe one top 10 classic summer song
Painfully Pop? Certainly.
If I had one tenth of one percent of the royalties this one song brought in I could buy and island and retire for life.
The song can have a saccharine sweetness that if listened to without imbibing in a libation of some sort can make the song almost unbearable. (too much mix and not enough tequila?)
But if it comes on the radio or better yet, if you hear it live and it matches the groove you are in.
You suddenly find yourself standing on your chair singing along
and that's what summer music is all about.
*Bonus track only because I like lap steel guitar
(If grown men in short shorts offend you, and I can see where it might, then just click on out of here now and save both of us the grief)
I have been meaning to do a "music of summer" post since last spring but the more I pondered just what makes good summer music the more it just seems totally subjective.
I can't recall anything particular good from my youth that I can identify as summer music. It was a dry period after all the good stuff from the 60's was over. The "Disco Era" music of the time I still hate with a passion that burns like a thousand suns. I really do feel I was robbed of part of a decent youth. But enough about that.
Posting up something from the Beach Boys is just too easy. It's not that the Beach Boys don't have musical merit it's just that their best stuff never got air play and so they are forced by fans and promoters to sing "Surfer Girl". Forever.
This one came on the radio the other day and struck me as maybe one top 10 classic summer song
Painfully Pop? Certainly.
If I had one tenth of one percent of the royalties this one song brought in I could buy and island and retire for life.
The song can have a saccharine sweetness that if listened to without imbibing in a libation of some sort can make the song almost unbearable. (too much mix and not enough tequila?)
But if it comes on the radio or better yet, if you hear it live and it matches the groove you are in.
You suddenly find yourself standing on your chair singing along
and that's what summer music is all about.
*Bonus track only because I like lap steel guitar
Comments
Will check back later...
How about: Bay Street, 1975. Smell of brine, Coppertone and those greasy, square slices of pizza. Thousands of little AM radios tuned to KHJ.
Disco, soft rock, post-hippie malaise rock.
Zeitgeist. Gestalt. Synesthesia.
Winter was for the hardcore- isolated dots from the cliff. Summer was a collective experience.