Summer Songs 5 (July)
Summer is a season of three very distinct feelings that happen to correspond pretty well with it’s respective months of June, July and August. (I know, I know: there’s more “literal” summer in September verses June but the FEELING of summer will always hang it’s hat on the June side just as September will always and forever feel like the first month of Autumn… actual day tally be damned!).
It’s been quite a few years since I put out a summer mix, so I decided to challenge myself by creating three this year… (I have had a large stockpile of summer songs piling up rearing to go). One mix for each of the three moods that crop up inside me during the summertime. June’s mix is out and it’s rambunctious and full of the explosive freedom that comes with that first bit of sunshiny goodness.
Cause, to my mind, summer is permanently associated with those eternally youthful school time years. Specifically those of the teenage variety. Though it’s getting close to a couple of decades now since my actual routine was dictated by any school calendar, there is nevertheless an engrained internal clock that very much feels the rhythms of that former life. Summer = Freedom, choices, and infinite possibilities. Mid-August looms in the distance as a sort of second New Years. Shackles that start the whole shebang over again.
July is that hazy middle ground. It starts off as a continuation of that June-time BANG (in a very literal way) as we don stars and stripe garb and set fire to the sky in the name of freedom. As the smoke clears and our stomachs get over the brats and burgers and beer that we (maybe) overindulged in, a different feeling settles down. Summer is already slipping away from us. I mean, June flew by and July is in full gear and soon enough we will be staring down the barrel of August. Back to school and real life and reality itself.
July (especially the mid-to-later point that we find ourselves in) is summer that is trying desperately to hold onto some feeling… and losing a small bit day by day. The days already literally getting shorter just as summer has made it’s official grand solsticey entrance. A quickly ticking bomb… of time… like a… time bomb. You get the idea.
These are a group of songs that I feel have that special July pull in them… a sense of holding on to what’s slipping away.
I hope you find something you dig. Spotifiers can get the playlist up top ^^^ . Videos can be found below ↓↓↓ . As always, if you hear something you love: throw some support behind the artist that made it… buy tunes, grab concert tix, share them far and wide on your fave social media… etc, etc…
Follow Musical Musings on the FB, Twitter, and/or Spotify to get more playlists and tune suggestions. One more summer playlist will be coming attcha in August!
Happy Summer, my friends (while it lasts!)…
Tracklisting:
The High Divers - Summertime
Squeeze - Happy Days
The Head and the Heart - Summertime
THE VOYCES - Race You To The Sun
Priscilla Ahn - You and Me
Brett Dennen - Cassidy
Jesca Hoop - Summertime
The Paper Kites - Kiss the Grass
Future Islands - Back in the Tall Grass
Falls - Summer
The Rural Alberta Advantage - In The Summertime
Josh Pyke - The Summer
Johnathan Rice - That Summer Feeling
Kacy & Clayton - Just Like A Summer Cloud
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - In the Summer
Jessica Lea Mayfield - Standing In The Sun
Tyler Lyle - Nashville
Cataldo - Black and Milds
Katie Herzig - Summer
Emily Kinney - Be Good
Colin & Caroline - Fireflies
Connor Zwetsch - Candy Bars
*Many thanks to freepngimg.com for the clipart on the cover art!
Need more Summer Songs? Here’s the first 3 Volumes!