“Every day is a good day,” a currently popular refrain among old friends who are also old goes, “when I’m still upright.” All the better, of course, when we are upright with some music close at hand and ear.
Now, halfway through the eighth year of this blog’s existence, I am pleased to observe that it, along with its creator, remain more upright than not, a happy fact for which I will not fail to publicly thank the gods, lest they smote me before I’ve had a chance to scout out the season’s hot new mojito recipes.
And it being summer, it is my not-all-that-solemn duty to honor the season in the traditional manner: by trotting out three summer-themed songs that I trust will put grins on your face (the first song below), maybe teach you an easy loping dance step or two for whenever music venues open again in this corona’d world (second song), and then, perhaps coax a tear out of your eye with the sweet pathos of a song by an old friend indeed, who sadly, is upright and among us no more.
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Sure, summer gets too blazing hot & humid in some parts of our land. (Yeah, I’m looking at YOU, my adopted state of North Carolina!) But that doesn’t stop the season from also being synonymous everywhere with fun and its many happy correlates: frolic and freedom, respite and recreation, rejuvenation and ease.
And if you’re fortunate enough to find yourself blown along by a “summer breeze” (from our First Annual; you can find the entire previous seven Songs of Summer posts here…), you could land “Under the Boardwalk,” where you are sure to have some fun, and stay cooler in the bargain…
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I well remember the first time I ever saw Will Smith perform: in the movie “Six Degrees of Separation,” which caused me about 6,000 degrees of admiration and consternation in subsequent weeks, his terrifying performance as the smoothest ever young conman looking so effortless that I no doubt would have happily invited his character to stay at my house, too, even knowing what the movie revealed as his ruthless chicanery.
Nearly 20 years on in this “Summertime” hip hop that shares zero in common with the classic song of the same name from “Porgy and Bess,” Mr. Smith shows the same buttery panache, gliding through a song with the help of his bud Jazzy Jeff that is so perfectly paced to languid summer days as to get you searching (calmly, in joyous anticipation) for your beach chair and flip-flops.
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Finally, a more somber reflection on the fact that summer, too, will end, as everything does, often sooner than we like. And who better to remind us of that than John Prine, he of the ever playful spirit whose music mixed the simple, sometimes goofy joys of being alive with the heartbreak of loss and the righteous anger of injustice.
Prine was one of the early victims of the coronavirus, dying in April, his rich legacy of song duly noted here.
And before we wind this up, I must note another, more recent departure: of my Durham friend of just a few years, Bruce Curran, a frequent commenter on these pages up until a few months ago, when a routine surgery went awry and landed him in a long, tenacious struggle that finally took him from us last weekend.
I hadn’t gotten to know Bruce nearly as well as I was still looking forward to in these coming years of retirement ease, and alas, those precious times will not come to pass. Bruce was a force of nature, the very definition of loquaciousness, stories and commentary and bonhomie pouring forth from him in an unending stream that is now, sadly, shockingly, stilled.
But the stories of his life will surely live on among all those who knew him, who cannot fail to smile even now, when the wound is so fresh, at the thought of the abundance and life-love that defined him. Here, at summer’s beginning, let us honor him, and our mutual friend John Prine as well, as we note summer’s fleetingness, the days clicking off already, each round of sunlight shorter than the last, heading on the inexorable road toward summer’s end.
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Check out this blog’s public page on Facebook for 1-minute snippets of wisdom and other musings from the world’s great thinkers and artists, accompanied by lovely photography.
http://www.facebook.com/TraversingBlog
Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing.
Elizabeth Haslam, whose photos (except for the books) grace the rotating banner at top of page.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/
Library books photo by Larry Rose, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com
Check out this blog’s public page on Facebook for 1-minute snippets of wisdom and other musings from the world’s great thinkers and artists, accompanied by lovely photography.
http://www.facebook.com/TraversingBlog
Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing.
Elizabeth Haslam, whose photos (except for the books) grace the rotating banner at top of page.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/
Library books photo by Larry Rose, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com
Cocktail by Marc Schulte, Germany https://unsplash.com/@marc_schulte
Thanks for your choice of “Summers End,” and your touching tribute to Bruce. Once he discovered my background in animal behavior and the like, he always paid me the compliment of assuming I knew far more than I did about paleontology and human origins, when, in fact, I relied on conversations with him to stay up-to-date. A very genial man, and constantly curious.
You captured the essence of Bruce in a nutshell there, Julie, thank you!
Hi Andrew, hope you are doing well. I always enjoy your blogs even when I don’t find the time or strength to reply. I can relate to this blog on Songs of Summer, but not without some personal ambivalence. At seventy-five the Summer heat is not pleasant anymore. But in my heart I remember in my younger years looking forward to the summer music and cruising around in my 289 Shelby Cobra. Those days were almost mythical. I also was touched by your comments about your friend Bruce in Durham. I recently saw the movie on the autobiography of Elton John who went through the early horrors of such early success. While I in no way see myself as a talented musical artist, I can relate to success and loss of it. But I think it was his song “I’m Still Standing” that has been ringing in my ears lately.
I don’t know how old Elton is now, but that song of Still Standing continues to ruminate in my mind. Like your friend Bruce, I too likely have only a short time left on this terrestrial ball, so I also think about my death from time to time. But so far I’m still standing, or at least holding on. your friend, Bob
Great to hear from you, Bob, you are a testament to some serious tenacity, my friend! I actually wrote about that Elton John movie almost exactly a year ago—may have been during one of those periods when you were more in reclining mode! It’s here, if you care to give it a look: http://andrewhidas.com/on-rocketman-and-artists-and-rocking-ones-world/
Elton is 73 now, and has lived quite the life—amazing how long so many people are surviving after what they did to themselves in their youth! (Fortunately, you & I have always been models of decorum, restraint & self-care, so we may just live to 200…) (Uh-huh…)
You be well!
Thanks Andrew – it wouldn’t be officially summer with Traversing providing a musical stamp of approval. I’d never heard/seen the Will Smith/Jazzy Jeff video- loved it – just looking at the faces of everyone young and old as they moved and groove put a HUGE smile on my face too. Very sorry to hear about your buddy Bruce, I remember reading a number of his comments on the blog and enjoying his wry perspectives… Another fun musical spin on the Still Standing riff Bob mentioned is a great tune by noted Broadway tunesmith Stephen Sondheim, I’m Still Here – many great versions, one of my favs is by Elaine Stritch who kind of talk sings it in such a way that really lets the lyric breathe -being 80+ yrs herself adds some extra panache… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xz1TUgdG6A
It will be an unforgettable COVID summer for us all, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create some memorable times anyway!
I think Cruel Summer, by BananaRama (from the 80’s) is this year’s song. Shut in, locked down, a bit depressed, by Covid, Race relations, and of course, the omnipresent orange douchebag. Things can only get better but the 64k question is, when? When a person has a short attention span, and a shorter temper (read Moon), it makes for a crappy summer.
Moon, “BananaRama” completely slipped by me in the ’80s, and though I suspect there’s a story to that band name, I’m none too sure I want to hear it! Song title sure might work, though as long as the summer turns out to be cruel for the president’s re-election chances, it will be a raving-raging success in my book, so take heart!
Didn’t know that Sondheim song, Kevin—it’s a hoot! Heard Elaine Stritch in a memorable interview with Terry Gross years ago—didn’t know anything about her but wanted to. Looks like she died age 89, in 2014, just three years after this song was recorded. She done good!
Yes, seems to me the big emerging issue on Covid, besides whether we’ll die from it, is how we will live with it. That’s rather important, it turns out—can’t spend all our time, thought & energy trying not to die!
Much like Robert’s observation of aging and heat, I find that as I near 70 the attraction of sun and heat, once so alluring and pleasurable, now wears me down quite rapidly. Unlike days of youth and early middle age, I now look longingly at the shade and, in fact, find much more pleasure it its protection than those long, languid days sunning at beaches, lakes and rivers. Yet, summer is still summer, and it continues to pass far too quickly; and in this summer of 2020 we don’t even have baseball for distraction and pleasure. Like Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, I cherished moments looking at scores, schedules and standings throughout the summer.
On the summer music scene, it seems to me that anything from Jimmy Buffett ought to be included. At a Buffet concert in nearly unbearable heat in Michigan several years ago, he shared with us all some amusing misunderstandings/inaccurate hearing of some of his lyrics. Most memorable to me is a story he shared about a first grade teacher telling him that she reluctantly allowed one of her first-graders to share with the class what he heard at a Buffet concert over the summer. In the lyric, “Let’s get drunk and screw” the youngster had heard “Let’s get lunch at school.” Guess it’s all in the ears of the listener.
Yo Jay, over on Facebook, a couple of folks pointed out I didn’t include a Beach Boys song in my first eight summer songs posts, which is probably even worse than not including a Jimmy Buffett song…so let us hope this series goes on a few more summers as I stay upright so I can set things aright!
That misheard songs deal is quite the hoot, and you likely know it’s even got a name—”mondegreens”—a term that Wikipedia tells us was coined by American writer Sylvia Wright in 1954, “writing that as a girl, when her mother read to her from Percy’s ‘Reliques,’ she had misheard the lyric “layd him on the green” in the fourth line of the Scottish ballad “The Bonny Earl of Murray” as “Lady Mondegreen.” And it has all gotten worse and more riotous from there, as evidenced at the link below, so happy reading to you!
https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/misheard-song-lyrics-6787
Usually I would suggest a Beach Boys or Jimmy Buffett song on a normal summer. But the onslaught of Trump’s tweets and vocal vomitos, coupled with the musing memes and comments from my friends on Facebook, has purged most of the laughter from my usual positive outlook. Add to that the racial injustices, protests and counter productive looting and burning. Add to that the unthinkable death tolls, suffering, and economic disasters ahead of us. Add to that…….well you get the idea. So for some reason, and it really doesn’t make sense, (yet it does), this song keeps popping into my head. A touch of sarcasm, depression, and prophecy. Lou Reed’s “A Perfect Day”
https://youtu.be/QYEC4TZsy-Y