Category Archives: Music

Summer is drama.

Summer is histrionics.

Summer is soap operas and Crystal Light and raspberry hard candy.

You have your summer memories, I have mine. Let’s make a new one together to this classic Donna Summer cover of ‘MacArthur Park’; it fits into the Solid Gold Summer theme rather loosely, as Alysa Liu won her gold medal skating to this song. Consider it gold-adjacent via the Winter Olympics. A campy golden reference that is deceptively at odds with how deep this post may go. For now, let’s get lost in the cheesy drama of a pressed pair of striped pants or a cake being left out in the rain…

SPRING WAS NEVER WAITING FOR US ‘TIL

IT RAN ONE STEP AHEAD AS WE FOLLOWED IN THE DANCE

BETWEEN THE PARTED PAGES WE WERE PRESSED,

IN LOVE’S HOT, FEVERED IRON, LIKE A STRIPED PAIR OF PANTS

MACARTHUR’S PARK IS MELTING IN THE DARK

ALL THE SWEET GREEN ICING FLOWING DOWN

SOMEONE LEFT THE CAKE OUT IN THE RAIN

I DON’T THINK THAT I CAN TAKE IT ‘CAUSE IT TOOK SO LONG TO BAKE IT

AND I’LL NEVER HAVE THAT RECIPE AGAIN

I RECALL THE YELLOW COTTON DRESS

FOAMING LIKE A WAVE ON THE GROUND BENEATH YOUR KNEES

BIRDS LIKE TENDER BABIES IN YOUR HANDS

AND THE OLD MEN PLAYING CHINESE CHECKERS BY THE TREES

There is something both insanely ridiculous and incredibly moving about the words and imagery and music here. When you’re in the throes of heartbreak, when you find yourself suddenly left behind and out of love, you do what you have to do to cope and survive. Sometimes that’s in a cheesy pop song (see ‘Bye Bye Bye’ by N’Sync for how I got over one previous paramour) and sometimes that’s in more probing mind tricks.

MACARTHUR’S PARK IS MELTING IN THE DARK

ALL THE SWEET GREEN ICING FLOWING DOWN

SOMEONE LEFT THE CAKE OUT IN THE RAIN

I DON’T THINK THAT I CAN TAKE IT ‘CAUSE IT TOOK SO LONG TO BAKE IT

AND I’LL NEVER HAVE THAT RECIPE AGAIN

Can you force yourself to feel or not feel things? I used to think you couldn’t force your way out of either of them, but I don’t know if that’s entirely true. So much of life is in our perception and perspective – change those and you change what you might actually feel. Like grieving or lost love. Is it better to allow ourselves to feel all of it, to embrace the sorrow and hurt and get into it, or does that run the risk of diving deeper and possibly irreparably into an everlasting funk? The past few years I’ve leaned into feeling all of it, even when it sucked, even when it hurt, because I understood that burying it all inside wasn’t helpful or healthy.

THERE WILL BE ANOTHER SONG FOR ME AND I WILL SING IT

THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DREAM FOR ME

SOMEONE WILL BRING IT

I WILL DRINK THE WINE WHILE IT IS WARM

AND NEVER LET YOU CATCH ME LOOKING AT THE SUN

AND AFTER ALL THE LOVES OF MY LIFE,

AFTER ALL THE LOVES OF MY LIFE, YOU’LL STILL BE THE ONE

‘Fake it until you make it‘ was how I made it through my college years and early 20’s. Sometimes you have to hang curtains of glistening gold material to hide the scaffolding and machinations behind building the bones and structure of self-worth. I know I can do that – I’ve trained myself to shift my perception and perspective, to coldly and analytically examine my feelings then take them carefully and resolutely apart, rendering them mere sections and segments, bits and parts and pieces of something that once constituted something grander. But do I want to do that anymore? I’m conflicted.

I WILL TAKE MY LIFE INTO MY HANDS AND I WILL USE IT

I WILL WIN THE WORSHIP IN THEIR EYES AND I WILL LOSE IT

I WILL HAVE THE THINGS THAT I DESIRE

AND MY PASSION FLOWS LIKE RIVERS FROM THE SKY

OH AND AFTER ALL THE LOVES OF MY LIFE,

AFTER ALL THE LOVES IN MY LIFE

YOU’LL STILL BE THE ONE AND I’LL ASK MYSELF WHY…

As we embark upon this Solid Gold Summer, it is worth noting that there is nothing solid about summer. There is only irony, hollowness, emptiness – the sheen, the shell, the facade. There is no sure footing here. Every step is perilous and you must watch for slips and falls, cracks and ruin, degradation and destruction like some marble faun sculpture falling to the ground and smashing into pieces. Fake gold, false gods, imitation metal – there is nothing real to this summer. Reality is dead.

Along those lines, there is no such thing as a stable summer either. The atmosphere is too volatile, the conditions too prime for tornadoes and hurricanes – the peaks and valleys too high and too deep for a smooth base of stability or permanence.

There, that’s your first day of summer for you. Hot enough yet?

Throwing me that shade like I’m not cool enough…

Only one song will do for this day – and it’s the ‘Second Night of Summer‘, literally and musically, as we do our annual post of this ditty that somehow grows in resonance with each passing year. Summer is maddening and magical like that. It reeks of ambivalence and doubt, while emitting heady hope and impossibly intoxicating fantasies.

It’s also the time for short shorts and thigh-high breezes.

This summer will never be what you think it’s going to be, especially in these parts.

I don’t even know what’s to come – how could you?

Still, summer is fun, and that’s all we can do – have fun.

Hold onto your hats and don’t let your balls fall out.

A little 70’s/80’s summer magic for your listening pleasure as we enter the Solid Gold Summer of 2026. Olivia Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra bring us this classic golden nugget from ‘Xanadu’. Haters shall hate at their own disgruntled peril.

It’s summer. Lighten up. Dig in. Get mellow. Get down. Get ready…

COME TAKE MY HAND
YOU SHOULD KNOW ME
I’VE ALWAYS BEEN IN YOUR MIND
YOU KNOW I WILL BE KIND
I’LL BE GUIDING YOU

BUILDING YOUR DREAM
HAS TO START NOW
THERE’S NO OTHER ROAD TO TAKE
YOU WON’T MAKE A MISTAKE
I’LL BE GUIDING YOU…

YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE WE ARE MAGIC
NOTHING CAN STAND IN OUR WAY
YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE WE ARE MAGIC
DON’T LET YOUR AIM EVER STRAY

Along the same lines as the credo ‘There’s nothing that we cannot do’ from Madonna’s most recent ‘Love Sensation’, this song proposes that the real magic happens when people come together, supporting each other, guiding each other, seeing each other through the troubling parts of life. There is definitely something golden about that, even if it doesn’t always work out.

AND IF ALL YOUR HOPES SURVIVE
DESTINY WILL ARRIVE
I’LL BRING ALL YOUR DREAMS ALIVE FOR YOU
I’LL BRING ALL YOUR DREAMS ALIVE FOR YOU

As someone who very much embraces and enjoys solitude and alone time, I’ve also come to realize that we simply cannot do it alone. And as Winnie-the-Pooh once proclaimed, “It’s so much friendlier with two.” So for this summer, I’m going to endeavor to be a bit more social, a bit more friendly, a bit more open to speaking with people. This life can be difficult enough; if someone wants to share some of the burden, I’ll always be grateful for that. A summer of kindness and camaraderie doesn’t sound half-bad, and summers spent with friends are the very best sort of summers.

FROM WHERE I STAND YOU ARE HOME FREE
THE PLANETS ALIGN SO RARE
THERE’S A PROMISE IN THE AIR
AND I’M GUIDING YOU
THROUGH EVERY TURN
I’LL BE NEAR YOU
I’LL COME ANYTIME YOU CALL
I’LL CATCH YOU WHEN YOU FALL
I’LL BE GUIDING YOU

What is there to do? Only rain
Falling down from the sky
Only me and you fair and plain
Nothing lost and nothing gained

Only the love nothing more nothing less comes between us
Temperatures rising my passion is burning inside…

Spring is not going out without a rainy day or two. Nourishing, fortifying, life-giving rain. Like a rebirth and baptism all at once – liquid love, watery amnio, and slippery when wet. A song, then, for the end of spring, the return of rain, the righting of a ship in a storm.

My world in lines saving all as one
A love that no-one can deny
My one true light same for everyone
A love I dare you to defy
Only Rain

I once settled for less, but no regrets
Seeing myself in your own reflection

Erasure has previously provided the backing soundtrack for these words by Colin Harrison; as well as this post to accompany a murder scene. This song, for a rainy day, is decidedly more upbeat than both of those entries. A juxtaposition of happy music and a dour atmosphere – life’s uneasy conundrums ever-present and ever-tense. The end of spring…

Something in your eyes, that tells me why
I’m a fool for your own affection
Only the love nothing more nothing less comes between us
Temperatures rising my passion is burning inside

Embracing the rain is one key component to finding peace and happiness. We have no say in whether the day will be rainy or sunny; we do have a say – the final say – in how we react to the day. To find the joy and beauty in the rain is to unlock an easier way of maintaining joy. Sunny days make it easy to be joyful; enjoying the rainy ones ensures a more steady supply of euphoria.

You are my, My one true
My world in lines
You are my, My one true
My world in lines

My world in lines saving all as one
The love wich no-one can deny
My one true light same for everyone
A love we dare you to defy
Only Rain

Belonging.

Is it a state of mind?

Or just a couple of words hidden within words?

Be.

Longing.

Such a devilish trick, a diabolical command, cloaked in a precious sentiment: be longing. As if the universe wants us all in a constant state of unfulfillment. Wanting and waiting, wishing and willing. Cruel, the way the world sometimes flings us into such a state.

Be Longing.

A state of perpetual yearning.

I don’t know who I’m supposed to be
It’s like I’m always fighting gravity
I hear something calling
But I feel myself falling down, down, down

I want to belong to someone
Someone who can take my heart home
A home where I don’t always feel alone
I wanna belong to someone
Someone who is always near me
Someone who really hears me
Someone who can save me from me
I wanna belong to someone

For so long, too long really, I’ve been seeking to belong to something, anything, as if that was the way to find meaning and connection in life. I thought that truly belonging would fill the empty ache I sometimes felt, even at the most full and happy moments of my life. There was always a disconnect, a remove, a distance from everyone and everything. I tried, like a chameleon, to become what I thought might belong, and more importantly what might be beloved. Another tricky word – the impossible instruction to be loved. If we could, we all would.

To be part of something real
To be half of a whole
To be truly connected
To surrender control
I need a family that’s gonna stand up for me
‘Cause for so long I’ve been lost and looking for the light

Is there someone out there
Waiting to be found?
Come and reach out for me
I’m tired of wandering around
I’ve been searching for something more
Something worth living for

At some point, and not too long ago, I finally realized that belonging didn’t mean that you mattered – it just meant that you were able to fit in – and what was ever so great about fitting in? My life has mostly been about doing my own thing, no matter how strange or weird or bizarre it seemed to others – and standing behind whatever I did because I loved it. Being apart, being different, being unlike anyone or anything around me – this was where I belonged. And there it was. Belonging. A simple longing to be.

I want a love
That can slow down time
That lasts forever
That never dies

My dream-goal fantasy has already been originally described here. I don’t think it’s asking for too much. Just a space to successfully grow some citrus. What could be easier? There is so much available sun for the taking – seems a shame to let it all go to waste without the sweet perfume of citrus blooms as a by-product. I don’t even need the fruit – only the perfumed blossoms. That would be enough.

When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me
“Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree”
“Don’t put your faith in love, my boy” my father said to me
“I fear you’ll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree”

Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat

A song then, for this fantasy moment – one by the first band I ever saw live, thanks to my Mom.

One day beneath the lemon tree, my love and I did lie
A girl so sweet that when she smiled, the stars rose in the sky
We passed that summer lost in love, beneath the lemon tree
The music of her laughter hid my father’s words from me

There’s a lesson in this song, a deeper one than should really be conveyed in a Saturday night post. Listen to the melody. Forget the words, give up on learning a lesson tonight.

One day she left without a word, she took away the sun
And in the dark she left behind, I knew what she had done
She left me for another, it’s a common tale but true
A sadder man, but wiser now, I sing these words to you

Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat

Thyme, thyme, thyme… see what’s become of me…

At the edge of the ocean, or at the edge of the land, an art museum sits looking out over a bluff. A garden is situated between the art and the sea, a placement that feels heartwarmingly apt: the garden as a bridge between art and nature. There is a bench for sitting while watching the ocean, but I’m more interested in what’s underneath it all. A patch of creeping thyme is beginning to cover a round rock. The little fuzzy thyme leaves and tiny pink flowers soften the rock’s edges, blurring the border between stone and soil.

This bit of creeping thyme reminds of the power and sway that flowers and beauty can hold over such stalwart things as rock and stone. They defeat by being pretty, gently surrounding a cold gray stone with fuzzy arms of warmth and loveliness. They embrace the immobile and unmoving rock with their love – given without expectation or the hope of love returned. The creep of thyme made beautiful, as in this creep of a song.

I don’t care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice
When I’m not around
You’re so fucking special
I wish I was special

Thyme will spend the summer covering this rock, closing around its still stony heart. It offers softness and kindness – shade when it’s sunny and warmth when it’s windy. It is blanket and brother, caretaker and comforter, embrace and enchantress. It only cares to cocoon and love – its adoration feeds upon its own juxtaposition of hot and cold, hard and soft, interest and indifference.

Stars have told stories for centuries, telling some with a twinkle, and some with an incendiary flare – the longest tales of the longest tails. They write their destined trajectories and entanglements upon the firmament – and where they cross, lovers may meet…

A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes
I screamed aloud as it tore through them
And now it’s left me blind…

The stars, the moon
They have all been blown out
You’ve left me in the dark
No dawn, no day
I’m always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

Flashes of light and gaseous alchemy, elements comprising life and energy, the stars seem so simple but they contain multitudes – meaning, magic, majesty – and though they seem to watch us from afar, we do not see where some might be now – so long does it take for their sparkle to reach our sight. The twinkles we see tonight were emitted long ago, depending on how distant they are, and the bending of time, the traversing of great distance, and the destiny apparently embedded in the sky might all play a part in how our lives will play out.

And in the dark
I can hear your heartbeat
I tried to find the sound
But then it stopped
And I was in the darkness
So darkness I became

I took the stars from my eyes and then I made a map
And knew that somehow I could find my way back
Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too
So I stayed in the darkness with you

A cosmic love to outlast the lives of stars is a happy thought. Staying in darkness together lends its own sort of light. Do the stars have a say in who and how we love? And if they do, is it already set in the sky, already written by the light from long ago? The mind should bend more easily than time, but it rarely does, and never when we most need it.

The stars, the moon
They have all been blown out
You’ve left me in the dark (you left me in the dark)
No dawn, no day
I’m always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

A new night in spring…

when every spring night feels new,

even as we move toward summer, even when spring is near its end.

The pool glows eerily on spring nights, or maybe it’s just the moon on the verge of being full.

And Blue.

It’s a little too early for a tender song called ‘Nightswimming’ – that comes later, when we’re nearer to September. For now, another R.E.M. beauty – ‘At My Most Beautiful’ which almost matches the tenderness of ‘Nightswimming’.

I’ve found a way to make you
I’ve found a way
A way to make you smile

Spring nights somehow manage to be romantic, no matter if it’s raining or clear, windy or still – and love is always right when the moon and the night conspire to create beauty. It’s there in the warm water, in the perfume of lily-of-the-valley riding on the breeze, in the clouds moving over and behind the moon. The pool is almost like the color of a jade vine bloom dangling in the night of some forest in the Philippines.

I read bad poetry
Into your machine
I save your messages
Just to hear your voice
You always listen carefully
To awkward rhymes
You always say your name
Like I wouldn’t know it’s you
At your most beautiful

Once upon a Boston autumn, I listened to this song right around the time I started dating a sweet boy. We would last for almost two years, and I’d move halfway across the country for him, only to come back heartbroken and alone before we had the chance to share another spring together. We were so young, so hopeful, so unrocked by the world at that point. Still, we weren’t meant to be, and we couldn’t keep it together. He was brave enough to say so; I was brave enough to accept it without a brutal fight. This song brings me back to our beginning – a little slice of happiness and heaven.

I’ve found a way to make you
I’ve found a way
A way to make you smile

I remember sitting on the bed in my Boston place as the sun came in through the bay window. Fall was at hand, but it held on to the warmth of summer, the way cities sometimes hold that season’s heat well into October. Suzie was visiting and we sat on the bed catching up. Nervous to tell her about him, the way I would always be when introducing my boyfriends to her, my giddiness overrode the nerves and I remember smiling like a fool the entire time. The first inklings of love are unmistakable, and so adorably fun; I just wanted to share the feeling, to shout it and declare it and let the whole world know. It was easy to fall in love then, at least for me; my friends were much wiser – safer, too – but I didn’t care. Recklessly, ruinously, ridiculously, I would fall over and over and over again. And it was always worth it – if only for a season or two.

At my most beautiful
I count your eyelashes secretly
With every one, whisper, “I love you”
I let you sleep
I know your closed eye watching me
Listening
I thought I saw a smile

Lately I’ve been looking at long-ago romances and revisioning the hurt I felt at the end of any number of relationships. The endings usually left me sad and bereft, and in sadness there was bitterness. That’s not how I want to remember those love affairs, and so I’m shifting my view of them, choosing instead to remember how wonderful they were in their respective sections of my life. Hence the sweet song of this post, and the revelations – literal and metaphorical – of now and then.

I’ve found a way to make you
I’ve found a way
A way to make you smile

Looking for another place
Somewhere else to be
Looking for another chance
To ride into the sun

Returning from Maine, the road turned from rainy to sunny.

Summer whispered on the scattered days when the temperature reached into the 80’s.

In some cities there is already the bane of a heatwave, driving the warmth into the concrete, into the labyrinthine subway stations, into the headache-inducing unbearable afternoons where the only relief is in a cold shower, in lying very still as a fan does its damnedest to no real avail.

Ride into the sun
Ride into the sun
Ride into the sun
Ride into the sun

Somewhere, this song was here before. In a melody, in a riddle, in a dreamscape between sleep and wake. That first brush with sun and heat after a cool spring is disorienting. Giddiness and loveliness and a pretty little mess as we adjust to the new intensity in the sky. Sun – my sun – my beautiful sun – shining solely on my way…

Where everything seems so pretty
When you’re lonely and tired of the city
Remember it’s a flower made out of clay

While I’ve often found myself in New York for at least one summer weekend, the only city I find summer somewhat bearable is Boston, where the bedroom offers easy respite from the hottest part of the day, and the nights cool down enough to allow for restless, aimless walking. It’s the only thing to do when summer heat prevents easy sleep. The only thing to do in a city…

To the city
Where everything seems so ugly
When your sitting at home in self pity
Remember you’re just one more person
Who’s living there

The roads lead back to summer.

The journey that started in the spring…

How far will it take us, how hot will it get, and how will we get there from here? Impossible to make out the twists and turns to come, even if the end – the destination – is in the beginning, in those earliest days of spring, when houses of glass and green gave the only glimpses of hope on those nights still so cold.

Summer rises from the other side of the ocean bed, laps at the harbor of Boston, and stretches out across the Atlantic from the docks of New York – connected by salty tears, ocean droplets, the crying of the sky…

It’s hard to live in the city
It’s hard to live in the city
It’s hard to live in the city

Hidden among this spring’s collection of lilac-themed posts, a song surfaces, breaking through the din of the food hall at Moynihan Train Hall as I find myself departing New York after a Mother’s Day weekend on Broadway with Mom. It’s been decades since she first brought us to New York to see ‘Peter Pan’ when I was just a kid, and though our roles have flipped somewhat (with me planning and steering us around the city as best I can) it’s still fun to see shows with the woman who instilled a love of theater from an early age.

When I was a kid I built a kingdom
There in my bed
Filled it with wisdom
And all of my friends
They were like superheroes
We’d go outside and play in the garden
I’d shown my eyes and give ’em a warning
And they’d run and hide while I counted down to zero
And forever I know I won’t stop dreaming, won’t let go

A few years later, when I was in middle school, Suzie and Missy joined us for a trip to New York, where we saw ‘Jerome Robbins’ Broadway’. A little older, and on the verge of knowing everything as teenagers, we thought we were shit as much as we thought we were the shit. Simultaneously uncertain and entirely sure of ourselves, we walked around the city like we were untouchable (except for the lady who patted me on the head and said my hair was so softy and shiny).

I know we’re older
Carrying the world upon our shoulders
But I know that forever we’ll be young and bold, oh, we’re full of hope
I know I know, I know I know we can be giants
Somewhere, I know there’s a world that’s waiting out there
For you and I to shine like we are made of gold, we were made to glow
I know, I know, I know, I know we can be giants
We can be giants, Oh, we can be giants
We can be giants
Yeah, I know I know, I know I know
We can be giants

A couple of years after that, Suzie and I and our Moms were back in New York for a pair of shows that remain favorites: ‘Lost In Yonkers’ and ‘Six Degrees of Separation’. Full-frontal male nudity with our mothers was not on my bucket list, but we checked that box that trip. Suzie and I were growing up (a floppy dick bouncing around on stage does that to a person…) and in our friendship I found a certain strength and stability that I didn’t sense with anyone else.

When I was a kid I was a dreamer
My room wasn’t big, my house wasn’t either
But I had enough love to fill up a city
And all of those nights I watched the stars
They lit up the sky, filled up my heart
I won’t let go

By the time I was in college, Norma Desmond and ‘Sunset Boulevard’ had taken hold of my psyche, and Mom and I were back on Broadway seeing Glenn Close in her Tony-winning turn. The next year we saw ‘Master Class’ with Zoe Caldwell as Maria Callas – diva-dom was still calling to me in delusional grandeur, and it would be a little while until I could take myself out of the scenes to enjoy from afar; I always felt things too keenly, too deeply, for my own good, and for my own safety. But growing up changes that, no matter when it happens.

I know we’re older
Carrying the world upon our shoulders
But I know that forever we’ll be young and bold, oh, we’re full of hope
Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know we can be giants
Somewhere, I know there’s a world that’s waiting out there
For you and I to shine like we are made of gold, we were made to glow
Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know we can be giants