Linksy Bits: Songs of Summer, et al.
Your teenage self never lets go, DVF is your new spiritual guide, and ... road trip?
Finding a Song of the Summer is suddenly a thing. Ok, maybe we’ve always been seeking one, but it’s now MORE of a thing because we all have endless platforms to espouse our choices and recs to every and anyone who will listen (ahem).
What does a summer song really feel like, how is it different from a song released in April? Or October?
It’s really a callback, isn’t it. The time that summer matters most is when you are a teenager, in that particularly sticky and wonderful transition of life. When you really believed there was nothing more important than getting that lifeguard job at Long Lake so that you could just tan all summer. When you had your license and taught everyone to drive stick-shift on your yellow VW Rabbit (with the crank sunroof) in the Lund’s parking lot at 1am. When you sat with a boy on the edge of a field, sneaking beers and watching fireflies, with zero idea of what lay ahead. And zero need to know.
Every summer after those summers is just chasing that mirage.
That’s what a song of summer needs to hold for me. That feeling of loose possibility and trust of a simpler self. That being said, I can’t claim one yet this year! If you have a fave from the past, or are jamming on a new one you love, list it in the comments and I’ll make us a Pickle Playlist for those easy breezy teenage feels.
Here are a few picks to help guide you if you need:
The 40 Greatest Summer Songs of All Time
Rolling Stone’s Best Summer Songs of All Time
Every Song of Summer from the Past 48 Years
WHAT TO READ/WATCH/LISTEN/COOK FOR WHEN you don’t want to talk about the debate last night anymore. Or golf. Ever.
» Holy cats I am in love with the Diane Von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge doc on Hulu. It’s giving allll kinds of power that you may need to channel. DVF: Child of a Holocaust survivor, Princess by marriage, founder of a fashion brand, all around badass, dropping wisdom on the regular.
» If you read last week’s look into season 2 of The Bear, just know that I am two episodes into season 3 and I think I NAILED IT!! I have to quick watch them tonight because there are so many spoilers out there now! I promise to wait until after the holiday to give you my hot take on the new season.
» Caftans, Caftans, Caftans, and louder for the ones in the back, Caftans.
And something from the LFQ ladies who know more than I about summer staples.
» Ursula K. Le Guin’s home will be come a writer’s residency in Portland, and there’s one in France that I have been fully lusting after for quite some time.
» I don’t know if I fully agree with this, but here’s a list of where and where not to road trip this summer. Minny is on the thumbs up list, so if anyone wants some maps and guides, I will oblige. Nothing I love more than getting in the Jeep, sans doors, and just taking off to find a small burger joint in a small town.
» When you’re in NYC, eat at the bar.
» Zoë’s got a biscuit berry mashup that is living rent free in my head.
» This makes me happy.
I started with thrifted/vintage caftans during the recent lost years and I am obsessed
"Magic" by The Cars. Summer of 1984, aka the greatest summer of all time between junior and senior year of high school. Cruising Lake Harriet and honking at cute boys, zipping down the main drag in Hopkins before they squashed all that, watching boys jump off the Arcola Bridge or spray paint their girlfriends' initials on the barriers. That song more than anything for me.