Summertime Blues Playlist

RND/ To pause and reconsider the Rock N’ Roll adage that “There ain’t no cure for the Summertime blues.” A playlist and commentary.

And everything depends upon
How near you stand to me
– Morrissey*

*Update: no it doesn’t.

Curse Summer and everything to do with it. It was too fucking hot this year; borderline unendurable. Oven hot air with zero movement. Stuck in a shitty, overpriced rented shoebox at night with gnats buzzing round one’s violent-idiot head. Sticky, tacky legs. Empty hours upon hours, staring at the ceiling, feeling nothing but uselessly horny and hopelessly frustrated. Without direction. An aggressive Summertime nothingness – a dull, hard baked blankness, reminding you of all those days alone when young. So long ago it’s just Dead. Sitting on the dusty kerb of that Terminally Boring housing estate, staring at red brick suburbia and baking slate rooftops which didn’t end. Summertime and existential depression always go sweaty hand in hand.

The single most important message of this awful season of heat and sorrow: leave. Do not say goodbye or weep inside like some dipshit clown, simply depart and don’t look back. Gently but firmly shut the front door behind you, switch all Life Support fans to full blast and get back to your [/‘Big Science’] Projects. Or whatever. To leave immediately upon arriving is good, but to never have left seems infinitely better.

Golden Hour at Minnis Bay by Alan Glicksman (via Flickr)

Playlist of ‘Sad Summer Songs’

In which you were after certain songs that somehow evoke Summer’s heavy, slow, sad, unrequited blues. (There’s more than a few obvious ones in here, but stick with it.)

Higgs Boson Blues – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Sad Memory – Buffalo Springfield
In The Summertime – Bob Dylan
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want – The Smiths
Bend to the Road – Calexico
Cruel Highway – The Texas Toad Lickers
April Come She Will – Simon & Garfunkel
Urge for Going – Joni Mitchell
Merciful – Nils Petter Molvaer
Générique – Miles Davis
September – David Sylvian
Ghost Of Love – David Lynch
Paris, Texas – Ry Cooder
Sleep Walk – Santo & Johnny
The Warmth Of The Sun – The Beach Boys
Indian Summer – Friedemann
Dear Mr. Fantasy – Traffic
Eyes Of A Stranger – Payola$
Wave of Mutilation – Pixies
Summer Kisses, Winter Tears – Julee Cruise
Summer’s Almost Gone – The Doors
White Sands – Patrick O’Hearn
Who Knows Where The Time Goes – Fairport Convention
Wicked Game – Chris Isaak
The Boys of Summer – Don Henley
Almost Cut My Hair – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Can’t Find My Way Home – Blind Faith
Dead Flowers – Townes Van Zandt
I’m On Fire – Bruce Springsteen

Example Reference Links

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UPDATE PATCH (AUTUMN)

To consider important general life advice – for example:

“Never catch the contextless tail end of a conversation upon awakening with a sore neck in the early morning Autumn sunshine, moderate high winds whipping up the leaves of unrequited Summer memory; in which some smug greaseball just outside your window is painfully-obviously trying to get into the underwear of an amazingly cute, young intelligent creature you were once enamored with in another lifetime – his smooth varnished liar’s tongue dripping with obsequious, unctuous complements.”
– Resident Internet Theorist / Professional Asshole Robert What

In which the darkly laughable overheard conversation fragment in question was (or at least seemed to be) “I love your artistic representation.”

‘I love your artistic representation’? Fuck right off with that, Sunshine Boy – before I march out there and unceremoniously rabbit-punch you in the neck, Dennis Leary style. Tosser. A desolate widescreen virtual painting of such a foul smelling, buttery complement. From an photo by Oleander Garden: 3440 x 1440

Ideal / Idealized cost for such a Concept as this: £10k – contact Robert What today for details.

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