Today’s summer solstice accompanied by tonight’s full moon: yes, our cup may just be in danger of overflowing. Whether this confluence signals the beginning or end of some kind of SuperDuperNatural Age of Aquarius or some other magic moment in time, I do not know. What I do know is that I’m happy, at this age, to be offering a “Fourth Annual” anything, and hopeful we can all be upright and ready to boogie again for a few more “annual” this-or-thats still to come.
And so: the envelopes, please, for this ritual of the season, which this year blends wistfulness and nostalgia, pop fun and insouciance, rock spectacle, camp and more. And in case you’re wondering why your own fave summer-themed song isn’t here, you might check the three previous compilations, to any of which you are invited to sing along while taking a few twirls around your kitchen. I bet you’d look just grand doing so with the full moon.
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I wasn’t familiar with Kid Rock—a bit too contemporary for me—but this song looks back in a way reminiscent of Bob Seger’s Night Moves, set to a decidedly summer theme.
We didn’t have no Internet
But man I will never forget
The way the moonlight played upon her hair
Me neither, Kid.
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Going in the other direction on the time continuum, this song preceded my awakening to music, and it took me till this morning to catch up to it. Fun, frolicsome, and so-very-50s…
Well I’m so happy that I could flip
Oh how I’d love to take a trip
I’m sorry teacher but zip your lip
Because it’s summertime
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Finally, a far more frenetic homage to the juicy pleasure of saying “‘Nuff, for now!” to school. Few practice rock-as-spectacle-and-theater with quite the relish of Alice Cooper. We’ll let him and his mates finish us off here as we steam ahead to July—when Cooper, still doing his peculiar thing, is scheduled for a concert down the road from me here at the classical music concert hall, the Green Music Center. Five decades after launching his career, he’s appearing with “The Hollywood Vampires,” and if that doesn’t qualify as “classic” in its own Cooperian way, I don’t know what does….
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Elizabeth Haslam, whose photos (except for the books) grace the rotating banner at the top of this page. Some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing, see more at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/
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Well, this passage is as about as far from Alice Cooper as it is humanly possible to be, but the perfect quote for this auspicious summer day into night. From Pat Conroy’s “The Prince of Tides”:
“I have a surprise for my darlings,” our mother said as we watched a porpoise move toward the Atlantic through the still, metallic waters. We sat at the end of the floating dock and stretched our legs, trying to touch the water with our bare feet.
“There’s something I want you to see. Something that will help you sleep. Look over there, children,” she said, pointing out toward the horizon to the east.
It was growing dark on this long southern evening and suddenly, at the exact point her finger had indicated, the moon lifted a forehead of stunning gold above the horizon, lifted straight out of filigreed, light-intoxicated clouds that lay on the skyline in attendant veils. Behind us, the sun was setting in a simultaneous congruent withdrawal and the river turned to flame in a quiet duel of gold. . . . The new gold of moon astonishing and ascendant, the depleted gold of sunset extinguishing itself in the long westward slide, it was the old dance of days in the Carolina marshes, the breathtaking death of days before the eyes of children, until the sun vanished, its final signature a ribbon of bullion strung across the tops of water oaks. The moon then rose quickly, rose like a bird from the water, from the trees, from the islands, and climbed straight up—gold, then yellow, then pale yellow, pale silver, silver-bright, then something miraculous, immaculate, and beyond silver, a color native only to southern nights.
We children sat transfixed before that moon our mother had called forth from the waters. When the moon had reached its deepest silver, my sister, Savannah, though only three, cried aloud to our mother, to Luke and me, to the river and the moon, “Oh, Mama, do it again!” And I had my earliest memory.
Great songs all. This one is always summer for me…..https://youtu.be/_NVVe1DkVsQ