Temperatures are warming, leaves and lawns have turned green, and schools are winding down for the year; summer is upon us! There are no shortage of great songs about summer, and we likely all have summertime songs that either help us get in the mood for the upcoming months or call to mind memories of summers past.
So to kick off this period of time, let’s talk about some of our favorite music that helps conjure the feelings of summertime. Perhaps it’s a song that explicitly mentions summer, or maybe it’s a song that has absolutely nothing to do with summer at all. Maybe it’s the album that you always dust off around this time of year.
What’s the music that most spells “summertime” to you?
To give you a little thinking music, here’s one of my favorite summertime songs. Take it away, Frank!
46 years ago today (May 16), The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds was released. There’s not a lot that you can say about an album that 1)is routinely near or at the top of most “greatest albums of all time” lists, 2)is Paul McCartney’s favorite album, and 3)features Brian Wilson working at the top of his game as a singer, songwriter, arranger, and producer (with collaborator Tony Asher writing most of the lyrics). Despite that, if you’ve never heard it, or need a reason to do so, trust me when I say that it’s a wonderful, fantastic album, filled with beautiful, life-affirming music.
How’s that for a blurb?
For me, hearing Pet Sounds was a revelation. Although I’d been exposed to bits and pieces of it before by hearing “God Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Sloop John B” and “Caroline No” on compilations and the radio, hearing it all together was a whole different experience. Not only was all of the music impeccably created and performed, every note that was sung, every note that was played, all came from the brain of one individual – Brian Wilson. It’s no mistake that the man is revered. In addition to writing the many indelible hits of the Beach Boys, being the primary force behind the Pet Sounds and SMiLE albums earns you a lifetime pass.
I recently got to see the Beach Boys in concert and even hear several of the songs from Pet Sounds (I’ll probably share more about this later). While the show was really good and it was overall a wonderful experience, I couldn’t get past one notion: I’m forty feet from Brian Wilson. While the man’s been through four lifetimes’ worth of trials and wears many of the results of those trials outwardly, it’s still impossible to not be awestruck at the depth and breadth of what he accomplished.
Here’s one of the more beautiful and personal songs from the album, “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times.”
One of the amazing things about the way our minds perceive art is the way that our opinion can be totally changed about something. Maybe it’s a movie that we dislike the first time we see it, but come around to on subsequent viewings. Maybe it’s a song that goes from nondescript to becoming an earworm that we can’t seem to get rid of.
Several things may bring about this type of change; maybe we’re older and can better identify with the sentiments of a song. Maybe the odd, initially off-putting voice of a singer just seems less strange after hearing it a few times. Maybe that one hook in a song takes a few spins to fully reveal itself.
It’s a strange process; I’ve gone from burying the only two Elvis Costello CDs I owned in the back of my collection to tracking down everything the man’s released (save for that opera he did). I’ve gone from being annoyed by Bono to loving U2′s brand of earnest spirituality-mixed-with-rock-music. I’ve gone from a country-music hater to a follower of Merle, Willie, and Buck. I’ll detail in the comments what happened to change my opinion on these acts.
So let me put it to you guys: what times have you found yourself changing your opinion the most about a song, artist, or album? What ended up making the difference to make you change your mind?
Jackson Browne’s “These Days” is one of my favorite ballads. While I’m not what you’d call “Jackson Browne’s biggest fan,” I think that “These Days” is an absolutely beautiful song, heartfelt and vulnerable, a fact that’s even more impressive considering that Browne wrote it when he was 16.
It’s what I’d even be tempted to call a “can’t miss” song, in that I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a lousy cover of it. When looking at any of the more notable takes on it, from Nico’s original, to Browne’s own take, to Gregg Allman’s, to Paul Westerberg’s, to St. Vincent’s, each singer is able to imbue it with his or her own stamp. “These Days” paints a picture of loneliness and isolation, and works whether sung with a detached, isolated approach or a soulful, world-weary sound.
One of the more striking covers of “These Days” was recorded by Glen Campbell for his 2008 Meet Glen Campbell album. It’s a straightforward reading of the song, and while it’s a great performance on it’s own merits, it’s impossible to hear it now and not be reminded of Campbell’s own very public battles. In that light, a great performance becomes all the more resonant, a testament to the quality of both the singer and the song.
Sometimes, there are things in life that you love without completely realizing why. Maybe it’s that comedy that makes you laugh uncontrollably, even though it bombed at the box office. Maybe it’s that song that’s a guilty pleasure. And maybe it’s an infomercial hosted by two soft rock stars from the seventies and eighties.
I’ve always been something of an infomercial connoisseur; to me, there’s something appealing about an advertisement masquerading as a legitimate television show. While the production values of infomercials have advanced quite a ways since the days of Ron Popeil’s spray-on hair (NOTE: Please click that link), they’re still a place where lovers of unironic, unintentional humor can get their fill. Case in point: the Time Life Soft Rock Collection infomercial.
I will be honest with you: for a time in the mid-whatever-we’re-calling-the-first-decade-of-the-2000′s, my list of favorite shows looked like this: 1) Arrested Development, 2)Battlestar Galactica, 3) Time Life Soft Rock Infomercial. I even TiVo’d it and tried to get my wife to watch it with me one Friday Night (attempt was not successful).
Hosted by the two guys from Air Supply, the commercial featured great music, stilted cue card readings, vintage seventies clips, a giant pitcher of lemonade, and enough facial hair to make you never want to see a beard again. Highlights included:
A loving ode to tracksuits:
That guy from STYX (No, not him, the other one. No, the other one) ugly crying:
Kenny Loggins and the symbiotic organism living on his face:
Meat Loaf:
“Pina Colada Song” singer Rupert Holmes, a performer who made millions of junior high students momentarily think their math teacher had become a pop star:
And while all these moments were great, nothing compared to the greatness that was Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock serving as smooth tour guides for the occasion. Thankfully, some person has compiled their greatest moments into one handy YouTube clip. Please enjoy responsibly.
(By the way, the sequence from 1:48 – 2:05 is one of the greatest things in the history of ever)
Perhaps no Beatles book has left me as enthralled and exasperated as the late Ian MacDonald’s Revolution in the Head, first published in 1994. The book is regularly featured in lists of the best Beatles books, and in it, MacDonald takes a song-by-song look at the Beatles’ career, helping the reader understand the Beatles’ development as songwriters. He also does a fascinating job of placing Beatles within the context of the era in which they performed, showing how influential they were and how they reflected the changes of the era. As a teenager reading it for the first time, I kept coming back to it for information and insight, even as I’d occasionally get angry when the author’s opinion didn’t mirror my own.
It’s a book that’s unflinching in its assessment of the group; not only does it help one understand the magnitude of what the Beatles accomplished, it also allows one to see different aspects of the Beatles’ career that might not have been as evident before. Be warned, though: it pulls no punches, even in its treatment of some of the Beatles’ most beloved songs. Spend much time looking at discussions of the book around the Internet, and it’s likely that you’ll see more than a handful that mention McDonald’s review of “Across the Universe.” Here’s a sampling:
After the aggressive sarcasm of “I Am the Walrus,” it is sad to find Lennon,some months and several hundred acid trips later, chanting this plaintively babyish incantation. His most shapeless song . . ..
Sadly, its amorphous pretensions and listless melody are rather too obviously the products of acid grandiosity rendered gentle by sheer exhaustion. While a Beatle, Lennon was rarely boring. He made an unwanted exception with this track.
Obviously, I’m prone to disagree with MacDonald; I would say that the simplicity of “Across the Universe” works in its favor, rather than the opposite. But I would concede that it’s neither as dense as “I Am the Walrus” or as passionate as a song like “Mother.”
Now to turn it over to you: what are your thoughts on “Across the Universe”? Does reading a dissenting opinion cause you to think differently about it?
Welcome to Meanderings, which is sort of a nice way of saying “News and Notes” but not having it be a daily feature. Expect more and more of the News and Notes-type stuff to start ending up here instead.
So, um, sorry about the Dozen Love Songs feature. I think there are still three or four entries I never added to the list. Look for a possible completion of that sometime in the future, or a mass edit where I retroactively name the series “Nine Great Love Songs.”
Coming soon: a restart of the review series, where up first I’ll tackle Wings’ Venus and Mars. Not a lost classic or anything, but not anything you’d want to use as a drink coaster, either. How’s that for a blurb, record company?
Seeing as how today is a day that only occurs 1/4 as much as every other day of the year, there really aren’t many notable birthdays to mention, save for the late David Briggs, Neil Young’s longtime record producer. I don’t know that I could spot anything too notable about his producing style, but there’s something about classic Neil Young that works. I’ve been listening to tons of Neil Young lately, as there are just times that his material – especially the acoustic stuff – just hits me perfectly. I’ll never be a Neil Young completist, simply because of the huge amount of material he’s released, but I will always appreciate his gifts. One of the songs I could listen to on repeat is “Sail Away,” off the Rust Never Sleeps album. I just want to live inside the way this song makes me feel; does that make sense?
I’ve been listening to Bruce’s Springsteen’s Born to Run a lot lately; while I’ve never been a die-hard Bruce fan, something about that album has continued to stick with me. It’s widely considered a classic, and not only do I feel like it lives up to that billing, I think it’s also notable to me because from moment one, it sounds and feels like a classic. It’s big and bold, with classic songs like the title track, “Jungleland,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,” “Thunder Road,” and “Backstreets.”
That brought to mind another question: what did it feel like to experience an album like this when it was new? Did it feel as striking then, or have almost forty years of best album lists and song plays on the radio helped it have a stronger impact? If you’re not a Born to Run fan, substitute Abbey Road, or Who’s Next, or Songs in the Key of Life, or Joshua Tree, or OK Computer, or any album that you’d place in your personal pantheon of classics.
I experienced very few of my favorite albums when they were new, and the contemporary albums that I have elevated to being among my favorites usually took time and listens to get there. Interestingly, I can remember just a handful of albums that gave me a “wow” moment on first listen; for a sixteen-year-old Pearl Jam fan, Vitalogy felt like an event and a big statement at the time, although it’s not an album I return to often these days. Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? was the first contemporary album that I remember listening to that had the style, substance and pacing of my favorite albums; although Be Here Now did a pretty good job of permanently curing me of my Oasis buzz, I still hold Morning Glory in high regard. I remember really liking OK Computer when it was new, but I probably appreciate it more now than I did at the time.
So here’s some questions I’d like to throw out for you guys: What’s the most striking experience that you’ve ever had with an album that was contemporary at the time? Do those feelings remain today? Do your favorite albums tend to be things you love initially or things that grow on you?
