There’s a point about halfway through a kid’s summer when the last day of school is so far behind that it’s faded into distant memory, but the first day of school is so far in the future that it feels permanently hypothetical.
Afternoons take forever, sunlight lasts until almost bedtime, days of the week become irrelevant. Front lawns become makeshift parking lots for the slumping bikes of kids from down the street who drop by to play.
Ice cream happens so frequently that it’s almost not special anymore. Every day smells like sunscreen. Life becomes a drip of condensation down the side of a glass of lemonade.
And then everything changes.
One moment summer feels like it’s going to last forever. But the next moment, out of nowhere, every single retailer has their back-to-school displays set up. It doesn’t matter what they actually sell- clothes, cars, toilets, insurance –everyone has a back-to-school sale, and it happens seemingly overnight.
The signs in shop windows are big, loud, and highly unimaginative. Most of them consist of varying amounts of apples and rulers, as if most kids spend their time in class measuring fruit. It’s depressing.
But it’s also a testament to the paradox of summer; endless yet fleeting, lazy yet action-packed. A mid-afternoon nap that leaves you rested and restless.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. Shaun Weadick’s crisp guitar playing is like Don Ross in slow-motion.
2. The guitar itself is a touch out of tune, as if it’s been sitting on the porch all day.
3. The time signature comes and goes, so the song feels like it might end any second, or it might carry on forever. At under 3 minutes, it leaves you wishing it would hang around just a while longer.
Recommended listening activity:
Falling asleep in flip-flops.