Lemony cologne. Picnic blankets. Potato salad. No-bake cookies. Open windows. Ice by the bucketful. Fireworks. Bug bites. Sea and Ski "Suntan Lotion". Those dreams where you feel like you're being tossed by ocean waves whenever you turn over in your sleep. And these songs.
Memories of summer.
Gotta Travel On; Bill Monroe: Some people never shake that itchy, spring-into-summer feeling. Bill Monroe gives himself away, redeeming a song from the Folk Scare in the process.
Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon); The Mamas and The Papas: I see two sides to this one -- the terrible fates that befell so many of the girls, and a repressed narrator experiencing a summer of the spirit, if you will.
The Poacher; Ronnie Lane and Slim Chance: Gorgeous orchestration; the notes skip like sunlight on the water. Is this the harsh reality of an otherwise gentle, English summer?
City Folks Call Us Poor; Larry Sparks, feat. Cheryl and Sharon White: Ex-Clinch Mountain Boy, Larry Sparks, describes, in loving detail, the kind of summer not everyone can appreciate. Everyone should get off their high horse.
Rocky Mountain High; John Denver: Like The Beach Boys, John Denver could make musical instruments sound like summer; how could you place those orchestral guitars anywhere else in time? Add to that the sheer poetry of nature, and you have the quintessential summer song.
Roseville Fair; Nanci Griffith: Raise your hand if you ever took in the fair with the love of your life. 🙋 Nanci Griffith and an all-star cast help give this track that old-time country feel.
For Your Love; Humble Pie: As hot as the season itself, and just as unconscious of the temporary nature of passion.
Because; The Beatles: Puts a period at the end of the sentence that was 1960s psychedelia. Unabashedly influenced by those shamans of summer, The Beach Boys.
The Warmth Of The Sun; The Beach Boys: Seriously, you didn't expect a summer playlist without these guys, did you? "I'm sad, but I'm at peace with it"? Saddest song on this list, but it hints at what a rock Brian Wilson really is.
Blue; The Jayhawks: Summer's end. If The Beach Boys had been country, they'd have sounded like this.
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