Elizabeth Moen released a cover of Jonathan Richman’s “That Summer Feeling” this week.
It’s a performance by Elizabeth, Max Subar, Chet Zenor, Jason Ashworth, and me, engineered by Max and me and mixed by Nick Broste.
As I was thinking about the song just now it occurred to me that the summer feeling Jonathan/Liz sings about goes away, its memory haunts us, it taunts us, but a new one replaces it. And that new “summer feeling” is the haunting and the taunting. Part of what summer feels like as an adult is the missing of what it used to be.
What I can’t totally puzzle out in relation to Jonathan’s lyrics is the fact that I don’t only miss childhood summer; I’m also glad not to feel its uncertain, quiet feelings again, life with less routine, going to sleep while the sun is still out and being kept awake by blazing cicadas. You could say the uncomfortable memory of that state is still haunting or taunting me, but not exactly in a way that makes you want to return to it.
And yet… the more I think about Jonathan’s lyrics, the less sure I am that my distaste for the memory isn’t just a sneaky trick my mind is playing to ease the pain of longing for it. Jonathan is right, Jonathan is singing beauty, no matter which case is true in my own life. This song still reminds me to fully live in whatever summer feeling we’ve got.
Also, Jonathan singing “one more thing!” not once but twice in the song, let alone at all, is one of my favorite things in music ever. The joy, exuberance, like he just can’t wait tell us the next thought, I love. And I love the way Elizabeth delivered those lines, too: with swagger!
Listen on Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify, or other streaming services.
beautiful rendition
You reveal yourself as a remarkably self-aware and humble observer of our humanity when you speculate, “ And yet… the more I think about Jonathan’s lyrics, the less sure I am that my distaste for the memory isn’t just a sneaky trick my mind is playing to ease the pain of longing for it.”
😌