I recently watched again the 2014 film Love & Mercy, about Brian Wilson. Sadly gone now, but the film brings his struggles to life so well. The Beach Boys presence in the early 1960s was unavoidable as a young teen. I played my 45rpm record of their 1966 classic, Good Vibrations, over and over on a small record player in my bedroom, imagining the wonders and allure of the beach culture, a symbol of excitement and fun where blonding hair, tanned skin, bikinis, and boy-girldom reigned.
The word vibration has held strong in the American lexicon for sixty-plus years, especially in the shortened form, vibe, that might be described as good or bad and used as noun or verb. We hear it every day and it is as versatile as a little black dress.
We know exactly what bad vibe means, as anyone who looks at a screen takes in a large dose on a daily basis.
Still, summer is good vibe…evening walks, concerts, sunsets, outdoor life, and the pleasure of warm air with some slightly annoying buzzing mosquitos. Time stretches out beyond dinnertime. The longest day of the year is arriving on June 20th. Then, our daylight diminishes once again, gradually day by day. The prospect of three lovely months ahead is a rich moment earned by all who endure the other kind of weather, as we do in Western New York.
Looking back at Songs of Summer…
Along with the mentioned Beach Boys tune, another top song that summer of 1966 was Reach Out, I’ll Be There (The Four Tops) when Motown was still huge and another, one of my all-time favorites called 96 Tears (? and the Mysterians). These songs are so reminiscent of teen dance nights at one of the local churches.
Twenty years later in the summer of 1986 when I lived in lower Manhattan, Walk Like an Egyptian by the fun girl group, The Bangles, was playing everywhere. I had a t-shirt covered with gold bangle bracelets and this 45rpm…
Along with Madonna, Talking Heads and Psychedelic Furs, it was a very good summer of sounds.
Forward again twenty years to the summer of 2006 when that Gnarls Barkley song, Crazy was in the air. I had it on a mixed CD burned for me by my college-girl niece.
Personal history through music is unique to each person.
I pulled a face of a broken acoustic guitar from a dumpster in in 1987 and used it in a painting commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Summer of Love that I learned about on the cover of Life Magazine in 1967. I later reworked the painting into this one as a tribute to that history.
I remember when looking back twenty years seemed to be an eternity. Who knew that three times twenty could feel like a flash?
I notice that one of the top songs of the Summer 2025 is one by Alex Warren called Ordinary. I do not vibe with it and all I can say about it is…
N O P E
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