THE MUSIC HAS MAGIC
YOU KNOW YOU CAN CATCH IT
IF YOU LET THE SONGS TAKE CONTROL
THE SOUND STARTS TO GLISTEN
THE MORE THAT YOU LISTEN TO AND SLOWLY IT TURNS INTO GOLD…
Our summer theme ‘SOLID GOLD SUMMER’ takes its name somewhat ironically, as there will be nothing solid about the gold or the summer you are about to experience here. From its disco soundtrack to its sparkling metallic sheen, this kind of gold is superficial, surface, and hardly even skin-deep. It’s a gilded sort of decadence – empty of anything substantial, deceptively glowing as if it was something more – when sometimes summer is just a flash in the pan. It’s best to prepare for the letdown, to be ready for the fall when it comes, because it always – always – comes.
SOLID GOLD – FILLING UP MY LIFE WITH MUSIC
SOLID GOLD – PUTTING RHYTHM IN MY SOUL
THERE’S A SONG THAT’S UNREELING
TO FIT THE WAY THAT I’M FEELING
MY HEAD KEEPS SPINNING TO MUSIC, SPINNING TO GOLD…
And so the smoky voice of Dionne Warwick sets the scene and the stage for a summer of golden glory – just because it’s empty doesn’t mean it won’t sparkle and shine – and a gilded cage is as pretty as it is dangerous. Summer is a time ripe for that sort of ambivalence. It gives giddy hope, then dashes it into oblivion, the way it burns an early morning fog away. You’re left wondering what the hell actually happened, and how much was all in the foggy recesses of your head.
Summer is as much the sweet and juicy watermelon as it is the gleaming knife that cuts it all into dripping pieces of blood-red wreckage. It burns its golden suns into each day, gold melting into gold, becoming one and returning to the cauldron of night and heat.
I’VE COME TO DISCOVER
THAT MUSIC’S A LOVER
ITS HEAT KEEPS ME WARM WHEN I’M COLD
THE BEAT STARTS TO BEND ME
THE MELODIES SEND ME
AND EVERYTHING MELTS INTO GOLD…
This summer we shall dip ourselves in the gold, letting it burn and cover our bodies like the spinning sun, letting it light our hearts aflame and afire – burning with the kind of intensity that only lasts for a single summer. Dare we fly so close and approximate the risky trajectory of Icarus? How dare we not? Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all…?
A telling question mark to end that one. I’m too old to completely believe in that anymore, but I’m too young to entirely give it up. The knife of summer cuts many ways. What will this one bring? Only the rise and fall of many suns will tell… and some summers simply hurt.
SOLID GOLD – FILLING UP MY LIFE WITH MUSIC
SOLID GOLD – PUTTING RHYTHM IN MY SOUL
THERE’S A SONG THAT’S UNREELING
TO FIT THE WAY THAT I’M FEELING
MY HEAD KEEPS SPINNING TO MUSIC, SPINNING TO GOLD…
SOLID GOLD!
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s leash hath all too short a date.” – William Shakespeare
{See also Island Summer 2025 and Coquette Summer 2024.}
