The end of softball season signaled that summer was waning.
Fall arrived a couple of weeks ago, when I started working out to get ready for next summer. It takes that long when you’re older than dirt.
My iPod is my constant companion at the Y. I have a mild hearing loss, so I sometimes get a better understanding of songs, especially lyrics, when I hear them on the headphones.
So it is with “The Boys Of Summer,” the Don Henley song from 1984 that has long been one of my faves. The line that caught my attention was this:
“I feel it in the air. Summer’s out of reach.”
Yes, I thought, it is.
As I listened more closely to the rest of that familiar song, I realized this: “The Boys of Summer” is a nerd anthem.
Perhaps you were friends with the boys (or girls) of summer, perhaps loving them from afar, but never hooked up with them as you’d hoped. Still, you never will forget those nights.
There’s hope.
Maybe, someday, they’ll see that you, too, have something cool and beautiful going on, something that still goes strong after the boys (or girls) of summer have gone.
Then you won’t have to show them what you’re made of.
“The Boys Of Summer,” Bree Sharp, from “More B.S.,” 2002. It’s out of print but is available digitally.
The folks at the fine Star Maker Machine blog shared this laid-back cover a couple of years ago. It’s from the second solo release by Sharp, a Philadelphia-born singer, songwriter and actress. She now performs as part of Beautiful Small Machines, a duo with her longtime writing partner Don DiLego.
A couple other covers worth seeking out: The punk-pop version by the Ataris, which had a Black Flag sticker on that Cadillac and came out nine years ago this month, and the dance version by the UK’s DJ Sammy, which came out 10 years ago this November.
Please visit our other blog, The Midnight Tracker, for vintage vinyl, one side at a time.
AM, Then FM 