In 1997 I moved into a two bedroom apartment in southeast Gainesville with my friend Steve. It was a decent place, and while it certainly wasn’t the happiest time of my life–I spent the first couple months unemployed, and the next six months too poor to afford meat–I wasn’t alone in my suffering. My friend Jeff, looking to improve his life a bit, moved to Gainesville about six months after me, and while he was looking for work and a place to live he stayed with Steve and me.
One day in early summer 1998, Jeff came home from being out all day and told us about a song he had heard that day. “I always immediately turn off a song when I hear ridiculous harmony guitars, but today I decided to listen”. “What was it”, Steve asked. “The Boys Are Back in Town”.
“The Boys Are Back in Town” is, strictly speaking, a spring song, since the speaker declares that “it won’t be long till summer comes, now that the boys are here again”. But whenever I hear it now, because of Jeff, I think back on that early summer of 1998, and the ridiculous harmony guitars make me smile.
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Recently, I criticized a newspaper writer who observed that motion picture titles are longer than ever, which struck me as little more than a hasty, unresearched generalization. I noted at the time, however, that I, too, am wont to make hasty generalizations of my own, and I am about to make one.
The best songs are summer songs. I can hardly count the number of great songs that are directly or indirectly about summer. Many more, certainly, than are about any other season. Obviously, Christmas has more than its fair share of great songs, and German Lieder are frequently about spring. But summer has the best songs, the most nostalgic songs, the most evocative songs. Today is the first day of summer, and beginning today, and proceeding through the summer, I will highlight some of my favorite examples of summer songs.
My first selection, as you might expect, is by Bruce Springsteen, whose catalog of summer-inspired songs is surpassed only by the Beach Boys. The entire The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, and Born to Run albums, for instance, depict incidents that could occur on one summer day. “Racing in the Street”, from Darkness on the Edge of Town, is a sad summer song about a woman who has given up on living, and man desperately trying to hold on. In summer, a man has a chance.
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The clip above is from a recording of the complete concert that I attended last September with my wife and father. It’s a wonderful, if somewhat distant-sounding memento of an unforgettable day.
I don’t know who The Swell Season are, but, God bless them, they’ve done the best cover of “Drive All Night” ever. The singer absolutely understands what this great song is about. He even drags out the word “lives”, which is essential.
In the Dana Heritage Project’s Catalog of Significant Objects, the Sesame Street Book and Record is a cherished item. I cannot remember a time in my life before I heard this recording, so I must have had it since I was very, very young.
Actually, I never really possessed this record until I was much older. It was always at my grandparents’ house, where I could listen to it on visits. And since I visited so often, and since I loved Sesame Street so much, I have heard this album more times than I could ever count. Of course, I got older, and though I never forgot that this record existed, I only thought of it occasionally. Then, a couple years ago, my grandmother gave it to me as a Christmas present.
As you can see from the cover, the Sesame Street Book and Record “contains [a] 24 page illustrated book”, and a “full color poster [is] included”. Most of that stuff is long gone from my copy. I have three or four pages from the book inside the gatefold jacket, and the vinyl album itself isn’t even in a sleeve. Naturally, the disc is in fairly bad shape, with plenty of pops, and a couple skips on side two.
But, aside from the magical nostalgic quality, what I can appreciate about this record even as an adult are the songs. They’re clever, sweet, and performed in a surprisingly unadorned style when compared to what is popular today. The little kids sound like little kids, and not children mimicking Aretha Franklin. Susan’s a little bit soulful on “I’ve Got Two” and “Nearly Missed”, and the backing band gets pretty funky in “Up and Down”, but you never forget that it’s a record for children. “What Are Kids Called”, “Somebody Come and Play”, and “J-Jump” are especially sweet. “Number 5″, “I Love Trash”, and “Rubber Duckie” are lots of fun, and “Green” is a quality song. I seem to recall “People in Your Neighborhood” being a favorite.
I don’t know if I would have admitted it at the time, but the Sesame Street Book and Record was my favorite album until I was a teenager.
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On January 31, 1988, I watched the pilot episode of a television program called The Wonder Years. Though the show was set in the late 1960s, I related to it because I was about the same age as the main character. As the series began, Kevin Arnold was starting junior high; so was I - in real life. Through subsequent seasons, the show dealt with many topics relevant to my (or any young man’s) life. But one theme of The Wonder Years was always outside the realm of my experience: Kevin Arnold’s difficult relationship with his father. Many episodes dealt with this topic, and it always made me simultaneously uncomfortable and grateful. I felt uncomfortable because the tension seemed so real, and I knew that many fathers and sons had strained relations. I felt grateful because I did not. And though my life has certainly not been free of regret, and though “I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought / And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste”, I have never had to regret any aspect of my relationship with my father. We have always got along well.
So, as I sat with my father on a blanket under the open sky last Saturday night, watching Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play “Racing in the Street”, I felt like things couldn’t get better.
Sure, it looked like the sky might open up any time and unleash a raging storm. But aside from a few sprinkles here and there, the weather held out. And, sure, I was a little worried about how bad our view would be way back on the lawn, but that actually turned out great, too. And, if $56 per ticket seems expensive, we did get three solid hours–twenty-seven songs–of rock.
Miriam and I met my dad at my Uncle Tom’s apartment in Tampa. It could not have been more conveniently located. We ate an early dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse, which was enjoyable and new to me. We made it to the Florida State Fairgrounds before six o’clock, but they didn’t open the gate for a little while after that. We weren’t too far back in the line at the gate, but there were still enough people that I was slightly nervous about getting a decent spot on the lawn. Plus, while were were standing there, the sky, which had spent the earlier part of the day raining, then the afternoon threatening more, began doing just that. It didn’t last, though, and by the time we reached the grass we were hopeful. Though there was a mad dash for the closest seats on the lawn, we managed to find a great spot.
As I expected, “Badlands” opened the show, but for the next two songs I was nervous. Springsteen’s voice was shot. It wasn’t that he couldn’t sing in tune; he couldn’t sing. I honestly expected him to call the show off. But he drank some sort of hot beverage, saying, “I’ll be better in a few songs”. Sure enough, he was. By the time he got to “Seeds” his voice was strong. In the request portion of the show, which has become a fixture of the last couple tours, Bruce grabbed just about every sign from the pit. I saw some fools asking for “Ramrod” and “I’m a Rocker”. Fools. I did see someone after my own heart requesting “Drive All Night”, though, of course, we didn’t get it. What we did get was “Growing Up”, requested by a child in the front row, “All or Nothing at All” which has only been played six times ever, and “Jole Blon” which hasn’t been played since 1981. So, we did okay, especially considering that a few nights later he played “Ramrod”.
I was hoping to hear some classic songs I had not yet heard live, and I got them, including, in the encore, “Rosalita”. After “American Land”, I figured the show was over. But the crowd was so frantic that he busted out “Bobby Jean” and “Dancing in the Dark”, then, finally, “Hungry Heart”. The place was out of control, and I didn’t think he would try and top it, so we grabbed our blanket and were making our way out when the noise got even louder. Something was happening on stage that we couldn’t see. Then we heard Bruce grab the mic and say, “I guess we forgot one”, before the opening strains of “Thunder Road”. It was incredible.
Still, in a show which included so many highlights (including an enthusiastic version of–of all things–Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More”, which, as you know, is my personal anthem), perhaps the best single performance of the night was an astonishing version of “Johnny 99″. It turned into a rollicking railroad reel with dueling guitar solos and showboating. It was thrilling.
Nevertheless, ages and ages hence, when I think back on that night, I’ll most fondly remember hearing “Racing in the Street” while seated on a blanket with my father under the open sky.
