Friday, May 26, 2006
summer of death through misadventure
Sonic Youth: "Jams Run Free"
It’s almost summer, and it surprisingly actually kinda feels like it in Boston today. No doubt you’re already thinking about what your summer jam will be. I’ve never really understood why people want, nay, demand a song to define their summer for them. Perhaps I’m ignorant, but that doesn’t seem to happen with any of the other seasons. But, shit, I do it too, or at least allow it to be done to me, so who the hell am I to disagree. My early odds-on favorite for the summer of ’06 (the summer of death through misadventure) is ”Jams Run Free”, by acclaimed recording artists Sonic Youth. It’s their catchiest song since I was in high school, at least, and that little three-note guitar line they play throughout is beautifully simple and insistent. It likes to hang out in my head. And the lady’s voice doesn’t sound like my grandfather gargling this time, and even the noisy bits near the end are like 73% sunshine and cotton candy, at least when compared to something like EVOL (which is still, you know, completely awesome, and better than this record, but whatever). But mostly it’s the lyrics that’ll keep this blasting all summer, or at least that one amazing lyric, “we love the jams / and jams run free”. ‘Cuz the summer’s all about the jams and freedom and love and running, and when August is winding down, and the memories of scholastic resumption kick in instinctually and ineffectually, this song will still be there to warm the unknowable nether regions deep within us all. And then it’ll be 20 degrees and snowy for six months and I’ll want to destroy New England.
Sonic Youth: "Jams Run Free"
It’s almost summer, and it surprisingly actually kinda feels like it in Boston today. No doubt you’re already thinking about what your summer jam will be. I’ve never really understood why people want, nay, demand a song to define their summer for them. Perhaps I’m ignorant, but that doesn’t seem to happen with any of the other seasons. But, shit, I do it too, or at least allow it to be done to me, so who the hell am I to disagree. My early odds-on favorite for the summer of ’06 (the summer of death through misadventure) is ”Jams Run Free”, by acclaimed recording artists Sonic Youth. It’s their catchiest song since I was in high school, at least, and that little three-note guitar line they play throughout is beautifully simple and insistent. It likes to hang out in my head. And the lady’s voice doesn’t sound like my grandfather gargling this time, and even the noisy bits near the end are like 73% sunshine and cotton candy, at least when compared to something like EVOL (which is still, you know, completely awesome, and better than this record, but whatever). But mostly it’s the lyrics that’ll keep this blasting all summer, or at least that one amazing lyric, “we love the jams / and jams run free”. ‘Cuz the summer’s all about the jams and freedom and love and running, and when August is winding down, and the memories of scholastic resumption kick in instinctually and ineffectually, this song will still be there to warm the unknowable nether regions deep within us all. And then it’ll be 20 degrees and snowy for six months and I’ll want to destroy New England.
