My Favorite Summer Song

Yes, incredulous foreign national reader. Your eyes do not deceive. This blog has yet again changed format. I suppose beneath this shiny, endlessly malleable exterior beats the restless heart of an aspiring polyglot. Who knew? Long the unrivaled source for all things German, mathematical and/or dance-related, this blog has since become the unfailing chronicle of my incipient nostalgia for the likely misremembered moments of my halcyon youth. Oh well. A thousand apologies to my faithful, slide-rule-wielding, dancefloor-seeking, Bavarian readership. It's not you. It's me.

And why not gaze rearward? I'm not getting any younger, and, frankly, I can already feel my mind starting to go. Case in point: As a way of gauging my assured mental atrophy, I often ask myself little questions of trivia or fact to which I believe I once knew the answer. This may seem an odd practice to some, but, as far as I'm concerned, I would rather know my mind has been irretrievably lost long before I ever have to hear this brutal diagnosis from the lips of a medical professional. It's my sincere hope that such advance notice will dull the invariable shock of this news and provide me some succor in this dark hour. After all, no matter how crazy I may seem, I'm still smarter than this doctor. This man is a hack. Crazy? Tell me something I don't know. I suppose they'll let any old fool into medical school these days.

Anyhow, these are not difficult questions, but I assume they are the kinds of queries to which really sharp people in full possession of their faculties can quickly and correctly respond. In fact, I'm fairly certain I could answer a great many of them with considerable ease and rapidity during my middle school years, although, I can't really remember. They're mostly things like "What's the capital of Iowa?" "Name four Canadian provinces." "What's the smallest country in the world?" "Who starred in the title role of the hit NBC series, Blossom?" I have missed a number of these questions as of late, and I'm beginning to fear this is but the first harbinger of a rather steep and rapid descent into nodding stupefaction. I'm hoping regular reference to my increasingly redolent posts will prove useful as I attempt to thwart this creeping tide of confusion. At the very least, medical officials will undoubtedly find it a revealing and handy public record as they attempt to chart the severe declination of my mental health.

But really. Why? Why this change? Why now? Well, to be perfectly candid, about four days ago, I began to suspect that this blog, in light of of its unique content and broad, interdisciplinary appeal, was becoming much too big, much too fast. This impression principally resulted from a rather disconcerting email I received from an excitable German named Jan, a young man likely bewildered by a thousand sleepless nights spent in fashionable, frenetic gyration beneath the hot lights of the disco parlors of the lower Rhine. Behold the offending missive:

Hallo!

Please do receive this text. It gives me many pleasure to be received for it is the receiving of the giving that we often have much hard times. I am good. How is you? It is my much hope that you are well. My is name is Jan. I am German. I love math. I am an serviceable dancer. I am a fan of your blog. In my country you have millions of such readers. I know now not what to attribute popularity such as to this, but it is probably resulting of your unique content nature and broad appeal of interdisciplines.

We also such dances as we love. The only thing we now love more than math is now dancing. We noticed you mention Londonbeat. We have all their records. My cousin date the keyboardist. Such relationship is occasionally many complicated. Please do forgive such complications. It gives us many pleasure to be received.

You have millions of readership in Germany. We do not have much to live for, but your blog has brought many meanings to much lives. You are celebrity big like Londonbeat. Will you visits? It is nice to visit. We make much space for you on the such as floor. Unfortunately, you can not date my cousin. Such relationship is many complicated. Please do forgive such complications. It gives us many pleasure to be received.

Tchuss,

Jan (and millions of loyal German readers).

This level of devotion struck me as far more than this tender blog could bear. I do not have the requisite bone structure to support, endure or even tolerate fanaticism of this singularly teutonic stripe. I write for the flitting interweb itinerant and strive for a certain unremarkableness common to house plants, brick walls and beige fabrics. I shudder at the mere mention of the words "loyal" and "reader". Furthermore, it is my personal belief that such a catastrophic, zephyr-like groundswell of attention is anathema to this blog and should be avoided at all costs. In fact, it is my greatest fear (well, it's at least a close fourth, right behind Lyme disease, canoe fire in shallow, shark-infested waters and venomous snake attack while lounging in sleepy repose upon an under-inflated water bed in a sub-tropical clime).

As I've previously mentioned, I've long hoped my readership would flower in a decidedly organic fashion. One friend would tell another friend who would tell another friend who would tell another who had already told that other friend about the blog and what kind of jerk doesn't mention that he heard about the blog from me? and next thing you know, you have three very loyal readers, a fast-fraying friendship (after all, to make an omelet, one must break a few eggs, and transglobal social progress is nothing if not brutal. Change is a cruel and indiscriminate handmaiden, and I suppose there will always be casualties), and a seeming universe of infinitely limited possibilities. As I've long contended, you should blog like no one's reading, and, in my two weeks of blogging, I've found this creative chimera is more easily achieved if no one's actually reading. At the very least, it's much easier on the conscience, what, without all that pesky lying and all.

Still not satisfied? I know you're crestfallen, but increasingly difficult gentle reader, take a brief moment to dream with me. Imagine: It's a prosaic Tuesday morning in October. You awake to find six copies of untranslated German serials outside your door. Unfortunately, you don't speak German. In fact, wholly unbeknownst to your fiercely loyal readers in Baden-Baden, you find its cacophonous clashing of consonants offensive to the ear. Moreover, you secretly suspect that it is virtually impossible to pitch woo in such a discordant tongue, but, as you do not speak German, you have never endeavored to test this hypothesis. Nevertheless, you believe it a rather plausible premise.

You open your email to find you have 574 new messages, a great many of them from an overzealous, mathematically-inclined, dance instructor from Heidelberg (Benni) with a rather shocking jealous streak and an apparent predisposition for indiscriminate violence (a condition perhaps only exacerbated by his expressed penchant for restrictive, highly-flammable synthetic fabrics). Over the past two months, his correspondence has become increasingly and disconcertingly erratic. You open his most recent missive only to discover the following terse message:

Felicitations -

Please do receive this text. I have set the loveseat in your breakfast nook on fire.

Tchuss -

Benni

You rush downstairs only to remember 1) you do not have a breakfast nook and 2) you have never owned a loveseat. You wonder just whose furniture Benni has terrorized, and what did an innocent loveseat have to do with any of this? You imagine that somewhere in the world a breakfast nook is aflame and a homeowner is very surprised.

For the next three weeks, Benni's campaign of terror continues without abatement. You regularly receive laconic emails charting the considerable toll of his wanton malevolence: "thrown all the books from your rather voluminous library in the river", "sunk your car in your moat", "your telescopes are kaput!", "filled your dishwasher with concrete", "looks like you won't be breeding greyhounds anymore!", and "guess whose computer lab is now covered in tar!?!" One morning while picking up one of the German serials leaning against your door, you glimpse a picture of a slender, shirtless, spandex-clad man thrust upon the hood of a Fiat and surrounded by no less than nine police officers. Above the photo is a caption which you believe, loosely translated, reads, "Citizens of Heidelberg rest easy. Breakfast nook bandit caught. Police fear backlash against dancing, internet, synthetic fabrics."

Reeling from the shock of this news, you look outside your window to spy what appear to be four graduate students encamped in your front yard. You conclude that these are the people who emailed you last week (in English) seeking "a few quotes" on the manifestation of uniquely germanic neuroses in American popular culture in the post-Nixon era as evidenced by the ascendancy of rule-driven social dances (see Electric Slide). You decline to comment.

Late one night, unable to sleep, you decide to surf the internet only to discover that your blog has been added to the online version of the German social dictionary. Your entry reads, "Definitive internet source for all things German, mathematical and/or dancing-related. Best blog in the history of the world, but likely a well-organized fraud perpetrated by someone with almost no familiarity with the folkways of the German people. Also, author is probably not very good at Math, and, we suspect, a very poor dancer."

NPR calls seeking a quote on a fairly obscure 19th century German mathematician thought to have popularized flash cards, and all you can think to say is, "Flash cards constitute Germany's richest contribution to modern pedagogical practice. They are exceedingly German, and they are very much like something a German, especially a German interested in mathematics, would invent. I would say the advent of the flash card is probably the proudest moment in a vast history of fairly proud moments involving Germans and the discovery of new and novel uses for small pieces of paper. They are a headstrong people with an intense and decidedly visceral aversion to detritus.

"For example, I have found that is rare to witness a ticker tape parade in Germany. It is even rarer for Germans to use wrapping paper. Instead, they surprise the people to whom they are giving a gift by first making a show of physical force or, on special occasions, administering an effective but usually harmless dose of chloroform. I would also not rule out the limited application of horse tranquilizers for more obstinate friends, colleagues and associates. Once the recipient is subdued, the gift is then "presented." This often means that the item is simply dumped on the unconscious individual who will soon awake to find himself wholly alone, somewhat weary but literally covered in trinkets, baubles and assorted knickknacks. According to our empirical research, the recipient is often very surprised."

As you can see, such an unavoidable series of unfortunate events would hardly be good for this blog. As far as I'm concerned, I would much prefer a long and meaningless online existence to a brief, tempestuous fit of interweb relevance. Plus, how long can one pass off Wikipedia entries as original works before some integrity-loving denizen of the interweb blows the e-whistle?

But I digress...

After recently hearing Counting Crows frontman, Adam Duritz, catalog his favorite summertime soundtrack on NPR (the English Beat's excellent, "Save It For Later"), I began thinking about what makes a great summer song, and, by extension, just what my definitive summer anthem would be? Tis the season. Furthermore, given that global warming is apparently very real, I suppose it's high time I commence cataloging the songs that will pair well with the palm trees, dolphins and air brushed t-shirt emporia destined to become common sights in this formerly temperate clime. After all, Virginia is for pina colada lovers.

Admittedly, this is a question I find fascinating. Like a great many music fans, I am a compulsive maker of mixes. I spend a lot of time looking for the perfect soundtrack to the quotidian and picayune moments of my life. What's the perfect song to listen to while vacuuming? While driving to the grocery store? While looking for something under the couch? While walking a distance of a few blocks? Upon realizing I no longer have full possession of my mental faculties? Nic Hornby posited that the incessant cataloging of musical hierarchies is a uniquely male urge, and this may very well still be the case. I am a rapidly aging man whose self-awareness and understanding of critical gender differences wane with each passing day.

To a certain extent, this long extant impulse has been exacerbated by the advent of less cumbersome, portable musical technologies that allow listeners to imagine every waking moment of their day as music videos in search of an empathetic soundtrack. Moreover, software applications permitting the easy cataloging, organization and retrieval of songs has made the once lovingly laborious "mixtape" a matter of mere moments. But just one song? Any music lover likely finds the asceticism of this enterprise uniquely confounding (not to mention, torturous), and this is undoubtedly what makes this exercise so compelling. It's like some savage, sonic corollary to Lay's' once and former gastronomic gauntlet: Betcha can't pick just one.

Music has different values and meanings at different times in our lives, but, without a doubt, there are certain songs that have a decidedly transcendent resonance. Such tunes are utterly unstuck; both of a moment and a lifetime. Such a song has the singular capacity to instantly transport you back to that crystalline juncture (attendant sentiment and all) when you first truly heard it. But the perfect summer song? That is something very special indeed.

For me, summer will always and forever be the golden province of youth. It is a time of joy, freedom, excitement and possibility, a sublimely perfect season completely free from the fetters and frustrations of the adult world. School is out (forever, as some 70s auteurs would have you believe), it's hot, there's really not much to do, but who cares? It's summer.

My perfect summer song is The Rolling Stones' "Tumbling Dice" from the band's epic, sprawling 1972 double LP release, Exile on Main Street. This is, hands down, my favorite song from my favorite record by one of my favorite bands. It might be an obvious choice from an obvious album (and throughout the years, I certainly claimed to love other deeper cuts more), but there is something so undeniably magical about this tune. Mick Jagger may insist that the mix was never right or that the tempo's too slow, but, as far as I'm concerned, this song has it all: an undeniable groove, great guitar work, an infinitely catchy chorus, completely incomprehensible lyrics, and a flawless outro that is easily one of the most exuberant moments ever captured on tape.

When you love a band as popular as the Stones, you always feel your favorite songs need to be those rare, erudite B-sides the average lay listener has likely never heard and will assuredly never hear (lest you be confused for one of those uninitiated types drunkenly clamoring for "Start Me Up" at their concerts): "Well, you see, Keith 'accidentally' wrote this song in the spring of 1977 while on holiday in Jamaica. It's global themes and biting social commentaries were thought to be too much for the average western consumer to grasp, so it was only released in Lebanon where it peaked at #34 on the urban dance charts. It's working title was 'Woman - Your Love Has Got Me By the Changepurse'. Most people have never heard it." But no matter how hard I try and heedless of the opprobrium I may suffer, I always return to "Tumbling Dice". What can I say? It has two drummers (Charlie Watts and Producer, Jimmy Miller) playing simultaneously. Who could possibly dislike a song with two drummers playing simultaneously?

Within five seconds of hearing that signature, declining guitar line, there is little doubt as to what tune has just burst from the radio. Peaking at #7 and backed with B-Side "Sweet Black Angel" (a song about Civil Rights-activist, Angela Davis (then facing murder charges)), "Tumbling Dice" certainly wasn't the Stones' biggest hit, but, since its inception, it has been a staple of their live sets (they performed the song at every date for a period of seventeen years (from 1982 until 1999)). Previously recorded during the Sticky Fingers sessions under the working title, "Good-Time Women", it wasn't until the band set about re-recording the tune in the south of France that the song acquired its celebrated groove.

Admittedly, the near mythological story of the making of Exile is almost as famous as the album itself (which, although widely panned upon its release, is now almost universally regarded as the last great album in one of the greatest runs in rock history, a streak that included the undisputed classics, Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, and Sticky Fingers). In the summer of 1971, broke and exiled in the South of France to avoid paying British income tax, the Stones set about recording the follow-up to 1970's Sticky Fingers in and around Keith Richards' large chateau (Nellcote) in Villefranche-sur-mer. Due to copious drug use by almost all parties involved, there are a million different versions of the making of this record, and no two people seem to agree on much save that the Stones were in France when they probably recorded most of this album.

Exile feels like a series of wonderfully ragged moments captured over one very long and muggy summer night. It is a great record by a great band succeeding in spite of itself (and its demons). This album is the quintessential distillation of all that once made the Stones so compelling. It is the definitive statement of drugged-out, sexed-up excess by the most excessive band in the history of a genre noted (and celebrated) for the public and unapologetic excesses of its principals. But it's more than an atavistic ode to hedonism or some solipsistic soundtrack to a bacchanal. Exile is a near perfect, exquisitely diverse and decidedly expert exploration of the disparate and varied genres (blues, country-blues, rock and country) that formed the roiling nucleus of the Rolling Stones' classic sound.

"Tumbling Dice" will always remind me of the summer after my sophomore year of college. During these three months, I spent a lot of time driving between various jobs in my father's Chevy Malibu in the hottest place on earth, otherwise known as Columbia, South Carolina. This record made those drives bearable. After a long day of work, there was nothing better than climbing in the car, rolling down the windows, and hearing "Tumbling Dice" pour out of the speakers. No matter how bad the day or how tired I felt, it was impossible not to feel better when this song came on. In fact, just hearing this song now makes me want to get in my car and drive around. After all, what says summertime in America more iconically, more vividly than a car, a song and no particular place to go?

And when you get tired of "Tumbling Dice" might I also recommend Toots and the Maytals' "Pressure Drop", Billy Stewart's "Summertime", The Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe in Magic?" and Soul Survivors' "Expressway to Your Heart". I never claimed to be good at this whole one song thing. Plus, it's my blog. I can lie if I want to.