Summer is the best season for making musical memories – and when you align a certain period of time with a specific summer song, the memory is usually as salient as anything injured by lilac or peony. Fragrance gets all the glory when it comes to invoking memories, but a certain piece of music can be just as resonant. For this post, I’m recreating a playlist of the past, from some of my favorite summer songs. Not all of these came out in the sunny season, but that’s when I find myself playing them the most, so they have become my own set of summer songs. There is also no artistically-intentional sequence, for the most part, so if you’re looking for a deeper narrative you’ve got the wrong season. It’s summer; the living, and the listening, is supposed to be easy. I’ll only embed the first tune, and leave the rest for you to find and peruse on your own. I’m told Spotify is a great way to discover new music, so do what the cool kids do and go forth along that avenue (then teach me how to use it so I can follow).
My classic summer playlist begins with one of the very few upbeat and happy Enya songs ever written, and it was part of a Crystal Light commercial that aired during my childhood. A very strong memory of sipping their iced tea while sucking on hard raspberry candies (the ones that came in a round little tin with pretty pictures of pink fruit on top) all while watching the NBC daytime line-up is what this song conjures for me – a stagnant but cool moment that would inform a lifetime of drama thanks to the inspirational mayhem found on ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘Another World’ and ‘Santa Barbara’.
Alan’s Classic Summer Playlist
- Orinoco Flow – Enya
- Cherish – Madonna
- Love Will Never Do – Janet Jackson
- Rush, Rush – Paula Abdul
- Miss Chatelaine – k.d. lang
- Sanssouci – Rufus Wainwright
- It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over – Lenny Kravitz
- How We Used to Live – Saint Etienne
- Stars Are Blind – Paris Hilton
- I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) – Whitney Houston
- Alone – Heart
- Doesn’t Really Matter – Janet Jackson
- Turn Up the Radio – Madonna
- Human Nature – Michael Jackson
- Holding Back the Years – Simply Red
- Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House
- Your Wildest Dreams – The Moody Blues
- Liquid Love – Madonna
- Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me – Erasure
- No One Is To Blame – Howard Jones
- This Used To Be My Playground – Madonna
- Playground Love – Air
- Wicked Game – Chris Isaak
- Summer Turns to High – R.E.M.
- Delta Dawn – Helen Reddy
- Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered – Ella Fitzgerald version
- The Glory of Love – Peter Cetera
- Ray of Light – Madonna
- Something New – Axwell & Ingrosso
- It Must Have Been Love – Roxette
- Where the Boys Are – Connie Francis
- Poses – Rufus Wainwright
Some of these songs go way back, and are only summer-like thanks to my own singular machinations of when I played them the most. You probably have your own summer songs – the ones that mean something only to you, and have come to embody the summers of your youth. That’s when music seems to matter most.
And so I play the music of my own summer youth, rekindling old memories and burning a few new ones. I’ve purposely left out more recent songs in service of future blog posts, and perhaps another summer playlist before the season is out. Maybe by then I’ll figure out this Spotify thing and enter the current decade…
