5th November, 2007
Music Monday #3.5: Summer
Monday, 7:07 am in Music
As suggested by Amanda, like, a million years ago, the theme for this week’s Music Monday is Summer. So, without further ado…
#21. Ben Lee, “Love Me Like the World is Ending” (watch)
This is the last day of existence
and all I want is you.
And there’s a certain sadness
But I know, I know, I know the sky is what makes the ocean blue.
I know, I know, I know the sky is what makes the ocean blue.
To tell you the truth, the main reason I associate this song with summer is because of the videoclip which – for those of you not in the position to check YouTube – involves Lee playing his guitar while a bunch of people throw water balloons over him. It’s like, metaphorical. Or something. Coincidentally, also a good song for Blarking! And Corner/UNIII, come to think of it…
#22. Paul Kelly, “Roll on Summer”
The sweet metal taste of VB
Straight from the ice cold esky
With the fish and chips so hot and salty
Oh, Sally, won’t you kiss me again
Okay, this is not my favourite song of Kelly’s, but it mentions VB; possibly the second most ocka beer in the whole of Australia! Plus there’s a mood here which is I think fairly quintessentially Aussie; something hot and red and salty and laconic. Well, so I’ve heard; things are a bit different here inland (no ocean and all that), but it’s a fairly well-ingrained cultural image I think.
#23. Klinger, “Hello Cruel World”
Television never made me mad
A distraction from the future that I’ll never have
This is a Corner song, so I know I’ve posted it before, but nevertheless it’s still one of quintessentially summer songs and it’s been, like, a million years since the MM I posted it in, so here it is again. Klinger are a band from Melbourne and this was sort of their one-hit-wonder back when I was in college. I think they got into some kind of shit-fight with Ben Lee… no wait, I think Lee and made snarky remarks on radio about another popular (albeit crap) Australian band, Powderfinger, and these guys wrote a song about it. Though not this one.
#24. They Might Be Giants, “Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)” (watch)
The sun is hot
(The is so hot that everything on it is a gas: aluminum, copper, iron and many others.)
The sun is large
(If the sun were hollow, a million Earths could fit inside. And yet, it is only a middle-sized star.)
The sun is far away
(About 93 million miles away, and that’s why it looks so small.)
But even when it’s out of sight
The sun shines night and day
You know what there’s a lot of during the summer? Sun. So y’all should learn some FAKTS about it, care of TMBG. Speaking of FAKTS: This is the only non-Australian song this week. Fun stuff. TMBG aren’t well-known for releasing videoclips, but I dug this live – and very old – version on YouTube. Nerdcore to the max!
#25. Christine Anu, “Sunshine on a Rainy Day” (watch)
You touch me with your spirit, you touch me with your heart
You touch me in the darkness, I feel it start
Those of you who watched the 2000 Olympics may remember Anu for singing “My Island Home”. Or not. Anyway, there’s just something about Australia that seems to make a hell of a lost of our singers write songs about the sun and summer and shit like that. I guess it’s all that, you know, sun we have here out in the desert with the massive ten-year drought and all.
Hrm. Well, that was all obnoxiiously happy and uplifting wasn’t it? Hold onto your toothaches, though, because next week we’ve got “Conflict, Finality, and Music To Make Mischief To” care of 
randomredux. And after that I’m all out of suggestions, so I need some more! More, people! More music themes! C’mon!
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Music to accompany a session of Extreme Retail Therapy? Music that is A Bit Weird? Music that I wish I’d done (“I” as in “you”)? I’m working on a playlist of tracks with a “whoo-whoo”, “wheee”, “yeaaaah”, “aaaah” and other various grunts and shouts.