Soundtrack To Watermelon Munching

by HJ Mills in Opinion Posts, Song Reviews

The seasons are nomads, and Summer has come back for a visit. Watermelon and berries are no longer in hibernation. There is now potato salad to make for the backyard barbeques to come. The beach becomes an opportunity again. Ball Mason jars are just waiting patiently to house freshly caught fireflies. And the songs of summer are ready to prove that they are just as luminous as sunlight glimmering through the trees.

I recently completed my annual soundtrack for the sunshine months. I like to welcome each season a few weeks beforehand with a playlist, each consisting of about 200-300 songs. These songs are the ones that radiate warmth all year ’round, but have the same amount of heat as the breezes in the summer solstice. Fun, happiness, opportunity, and love glitter from your lips as sing along. That’s what makes a song shimmer in the heat. You can almost smell the sunscreen while listening…

 Brett Dennen, Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers, Backseat Goodbye, Ben Kweller, and Jack Johnson are staples on my annual setlist for sunshine months. John Mayer’s “Room For Squares“, Iron & Wine’s “Our Endless Numbered Days”, “Elizabethtown” Soundtrack (both of them), and Counting Crows’ “Films About Ghosts: The Best Of” are albums that just persistently wait for the humidity to settle in so they can finally feel at home.An excerpt of my summer 2009 playlist will hopefully grant you the spark to make a firecracker of a playlist for yourself.

 “Love” by Great Big Sea
“Sons And Daughters” by The Decemberists
“4th of July” by Stephen Kellogg and The Sixers
“Blessed” by Brett Dennen
“Strawberry Swing” by Coldplay
“The One I Love” by David Gray
“I Feel It All” by Feist
“(Nothing But) Flowers” by Talking Heads
“That Time” by Regina Spektor
“Fireflies” by Rhett Miller
“Starlight” by Muse
“Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews Band
“Sing A Song Of Summer” by John Martyn
“1000 Reasons” by Kris Delmhorst