"Summer, summer, summer Slowly turned into fall Me and my baby doll Never went to the beach Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere Was a place we could run On the sand with the sun Always just out of reach Somewhere sunny summer's Marching to a different drummer, singing "Summer, summer summer's Gonna turn into fall You and your baby doll Better go to the beach cause
Love is lighter than air It floats away if you let go Love is lighter than air It rises through the falling snow."
A crime, crime, crime Sin and illness is time Neither reason nor rhyme Can obstruct his bad dance The nasty little swine Slipped us mickeys in wine Wove his hair into twine And then tied our hands We're forced to watch him wriggle And endure his folsome giggle and his Mime, mime, mime Unforgivable mime Our one chance is to climb Into blimps of romance cause
Love is lighter than air It floats away if you let go Love is lighter than air It rises through the falling snow"
Last night was such a bummer- Morrissey went out on stage to play six songs, only to have his voice crack and end the show early. Throughout all of today the disappoint still lingered on. However if there's one thing that always elevates my mood it's The Adventures of Pete and Pete. I know I reference this show all the time in this blog- it's well deserved though. I could bring it up more, as it still quite doesn't get the recognition it deserves. Maybe I'll do an entire Pete & Pete week in the future. I like that idea. Late August I could see that happening.
Yesterday I commented on "Summertime" and the thousands of times that song has been covered. In terms of band names, "Polaris" has to be one of the most duplicated, with at least 6, yet for me and many others, there is and will forever be only one Polaris. The thing is though Polaris isn't even a real band per se, as they were conceived and existed solely for the purpose of playing the opening credits on Pete and Pete. They were of course real musicians though, featuring Mark Mulcahy and others members of the mid 80's Connecticut based band jangle pop band Miracle Legion. Polaris also wrote an entire album for the show, but the only times we ever actually saw the band was the opening credits and, get this transition- the episode "Hard Day's Pete" where Little Pete sees Polaris playing "Summerbaby" in a garage on the way to school yet when he returns to the site he finds no sign that the band nor the song even existed, apart from a mere guitar pick. This then guides the rest of the episode with Pete forming his own band The Blowholes (featuring Marshall Crenshaw!) to try to find his fleeting favorite song. It's absolutely fantastic, especially for those with the experience of playing guitar and being in a band. Definitely one of my favorites from the series.
"Summerbaby, come on baby, show me the town I didn't know that you'd be such a short visit Once a year I noticed that you're not around Mama says you went when you were exquisite
If you seen all I done I'm alone I do things nobody knows
We were all wondering where you came from Last night we were hypothesizing that you were an angel Sometimes it feels like you're looking down From a place up where angels are from
If you seen all I done When I'm alone I do things that nobody knows Every drop of sex, every little mess I've made I was around, I was around
I was around (nobody knows, nobody knows)
Do you see a lot of angels up there like you? Wolfgang and Vincent van Gogh Have you seen Josephine? Someone from town like Marshall Brown? Or someone you know?
Here's "Hard Day's Pete" in its entirety for your viewing pleasure-
Though I wasn't aware then, yesterday was the 100th entry. Nothing special is planned. No lengthy extravaganza of a post, no sentimental recap of the boner blog's life so far- things will continue on as normal. However tonight I'm going to see Morrissey, so for me, that's a pretty damn good reward.
This summer song entry will be what is inarguably the most well-known song about the summer, "Summertime." It was originally written for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin. Most people aren't aware of that. Yes, it was not written by Sublime. That said, it's one of the most covered songs ever, with about 2,600 recorded versions and 18,985 live performances. Everyone from Janis Joplin to Devendra Banhart to Scarlett Johansson had their own version. There's even http://www.summertime-collection.com/a popular site among the "Summertime" devotees, as it lists a couple thousand of the known versions.
Now of the versions I've personally heard, my favorite is by far the one the Zombies do.
"It’s summertime And the living is easy The bees are jumping And the cotton is high Your daddy’s rich And your mamma’s good looking Would you hush pretty baby Don’t you cry
One of these mornings You’re going to wake up singing There you’re going to spread wings And take to the sky But till that morning Ain’t nothing, nothing going to harm you With your mommy and daddy There standing by
It’s summertime And the living is easy The bees are jumping And the cotton is high Your daddy’s rich And your mamma’s good looking Would you hush pretty baby Don’t you cry"
Islands. Though they're technically just strayed chunks of land or volcanic aftermath we tend to think of them rather as what they can do for us, rather than what they scientifically are. There's of course the inescapable ocean, and ever present sand, somehow tropical drinks and steel drums also make it into our definitions.
Then there's Islands the band. Somewhat like the land masses, rather than what they are (normal people, some unicorns, who eat, sleep and engage in the same activities we do) we think of them in terms of what we can get from them. In this case it's very enjoyable and fun music. Their debut album Return to the Sea was my second favorite record of last year, falling just behind Joanna Newsom's Ys. It still gets plently of regular plays from me, especially lately as I managed to snag a copy of it on white vinyl (limited to 500 copies!) All of it sounds great this time of year, but as this one song had "summer" in its title, it just needed to be chosen for this entry. Plus it literally sounds like an island.
Islands - Jogging Gorgeous Summer "Woke up with rain on my head I can’t dry off so what should I do instead? Swim to the biggest flower bed Pick one for you and kiss you my love
So when the storm clouds dissolved into thin air Like when my hands got lost in your thick hair Dogs bark, long days, not dark The sky’s blue so what should we do? We can do anything we want to
Millions of sunsets but the one I'll remember Is the one where you told me you’ll love me forever
Took a long walk into the woods Climbing the world’s biggest tree And then they tried to cut it down But we didn’t make a sound The sun blinded them, they couldn’t see
Woke up next to you in your bed Another day to do it all again Creeped out into the sun Another day to give you all my love
Millions of sunsets but the one I remember Is the one where you told me you’d love me forever"
Now for a classic to end the week with. This is such a lovely song- absolutely gorgeous. Chad & Jeremy were an acoustic folk duo from the early 60's, and part of the original British Invasion in 1964. That year "A Summer Song" marked their first single on the American charts, reaching #7. Oh how I wish a song of this nature could still chart that well today.
"Trees swayin' in the summer breeze Showin' off their silver leaves As we walked by
Soft kisses on a summer's day Laughing all our cares away Just you and I
Sweet sleepy warmth of summer nights Gazing at the distant lights In the starry sky
They say that all good things must end some day Autumn leaves must fall But don't you know that it hurts me so To say goodbye to you Wish you didn't have to go No no no no
And when the rain Beats against my window pane I'll think of summer days again And dream of you
They say that all good things must end some day Autumn leaves must fall But don't you know that it hurts me so To say goodbye to you Wish you didn't have to go No no no no
And when the rain Beats against my window pane I'll think of summer days again And dream of you And dream of you"
Like many of their younger audiences I actually discovered the band through the Rushmore soundtrack, which is my opinion one of the greatest soundtracks (and films) ever. The disc is primarily British Invasion artists, notables include The Who, The Kinks, John Lennon, The Faces, and Cat Stevens. Mark Mothersbaugh's score is also fantastic and perfect for the tone of the film.
Returning to Chad & Jeremy, here's a recent interview in which they reminisce old times, as well as discuss their reunion, the stage of the music industry and perform "A Summer Song."
The first day of Summer is finally upon us! Now on this significant date a song only marginally pertaining to the season simply wouldn't do. It has to be one that fully encapsulates the everything that makes the summer what it is. That is the weather, the activities, the friends, the memories, and most of all the feeling. That summer feeling... you win Jonathan Richman.
When there's things to do not because you gotta When you run for love not because you oughta When you trust your friends with no reason notta The joy I've named shall not be tamed
And that summer feeling is gonna haunt you one day in your life
When the cool of the pond makes you drop down on it When the smell of the lawn makes you flop down on it When the teenage car gets the cop down on it That time is here for one more year
And that summer feeling is gonna haunt you one day in your life
If you've forgotten what I'm naming You're gonna long to reclaim it one day Because that summer feeling is gonna haunt you one day in your life And if you wait until your older A sad resentment will smolder one day And then that summer feeling is gonna haunt you And that summer feeling's gonna taunt you And then that summer feeling is gonna hurt you one day in your life
When even fourth grade starts looking good Which you hated And first grade's looking good too Overrated And you boys long for some little girl that you dated Do you long for her or for the way you were? That summer feeling is gonna haunt you the rest of your life
When the Oldsmobile has got the top down on it When the catamaran has got the drop down on it When the flat of the land has got the crop down on it Some things look good before and some things never were But that summer feeling is gonna haunt you one day in your life
Well when your friends are in town and they got time for you When you and them are hanging around and they don't ignore you When you say what you will And they still adore you If thats not appealing, its that summer feeling That summer feeling is gonna haunt you one day in your life
It's gonna haunt you It's gonna taunt you You're gonna want this feeling inside one more time It's gonna haunt you It's gonna taunt you You're gonna want this feeling inside one more time
When you're hangin around the park with the water fountain And there's the little girl with the dirty ankles But she's on the swings where all the dust is kickin up And you remember the ankle locket And the way she flirted with you For all this time how come? Well that summer feeling is gonna haunt you one day in your life
You'll throw away everything for it
When the playground that just was all dirt comes hauntin And that little girl that called you a flirt Memory comes tauntin You pick these things apart they're not that appealin You put them together and you'll get a certain feeling That summer feeling is gonna haunt you one day in your life"
The Cure have had some great b-sides. Some are frusturatingly great...so excellent that they really should have been album tracks. "Snow in Summer" is one of these exceptional b-sides. The song originated on the "Just Like Heaven" 7" single, released in October of 1987. In case you've been living under a musical rock, "Just Like Heaven" is arguably the definitive Cure song (though some might say "Boys Don't Cry") and in my opinion the epitiome of a perfect pop song, a masterpiece on every level.
Though Robert Smith feels "Just Like Heaven" was one of his finest achievements, he was less satisfied with "Snow in Summer" particularly with the lyrics. I think he's crazy. There's something seriously wrong with "Icing Sugar" making its way onto Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, but "Snow in Summer" being ommitted on the basis of spotty lyrics. Spotty lyrics!? Robert, might I remind you that "Why Can't I Be You" also made the record and the song featured these lyrics:
"I'll run around in circles 'Til I run out of breath I'll eat you all up Or I'll just hug you to death"
Oh Robert Smith. Robert, Robert, Robert Smith. Nowadays he's still truckin' along with the Cure and the questionable decisions. As of recently he performed a melody of Korn's "Make Me Bad" and "In Between Days" on MTV's Korn Unplugged. Any other time I would do a text link of the video, but this is like the musical equivlant of a train crashing into truck carrying hundreds of adorable puppies, which then somehow sets fire into a nuclear power plant demolishing and mutating the DNA on an entire city and its inhabitants. I really wish I could erase it from memory, but unfortunately it's embedded somewhere in the natural disaster category. He's also apparently guesting on the next Ashlee Simpson record, and keeps putting out Cure albums that the world doesn't want or need. There's proof of this when I saw the Cure live in 2004. Robert introduced the last song as a track they've played live only a few times before. This of course made the audience giddy with anticipation... would it be an obscure track from Three Imaginary Boys.. "Foxy Lady?" or maybe the title track on Pornography! Instead it was some bullshit acoustic b-side from the self-titled album they released that year. Perphaps the least climatic ending to a show I've ever seen, especially considering how the second to last song was "A Forest." Goddammit Robert. You're so frusturating, but at the same time so amazing. The Cure - Snow in Summer
"High up on this mountain The whole world looks so small And all the rivers Run away Slipping in your deep green heart I drink you as I swim And I'm sliding And I'm sliding with you Slide beneath my skin
Sleek and deep And salty sweet You open up in me Just like the snow in summer
High up on this mountain The whole world looks so small And all the rivers Run away Slipping in your soft white heart I drink you as I swim And I'm falling And I'm falling with you Fall beneath my skin
Sleek and deep And salty sweet You come And close in me Just like the snow in summer
Just like the snow in summer As it melts Into the sea"
