Songs of Summer

My top 5 songs of summer, brought to you by The Armchair Squid, Cygnus, and Suze. If there's one thing I love talking about, it's music, I just don't spend a lot of time talking about it here. My real world friends get enough of that.

1. Summertime - Big Brother and the Holding Company

The George Gershwin classic made amazing by Janice Joplin. The beginning has such a lazy hazy summer sound to it. And the guitar solo is great! As a former farm hand who listen to this song every summer on repeat, it really just brings back memories of kneeling in a field in the middle of July. Also, when I had no job I would stay at home playing Fallout 3 on XBox and listen to this album. This song goes surprisingly well with shooting radiation zombies in the face in slo-mo.

2. Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz

The summer I lived in a tent, fought cows, raced storms, and rode 50 miles over mountains  after I punched my boss in the face, I memorized all the words to this song so I could sing along. It was my greatest accomplishment that summer

3. Where the Devil Don't Stay - Drive By Truckers

A few summers back, some friends and I went to a festival. This festival was our recreation of Fear and Loathing, minus the destruction of several muscle cars and it was in Maine. Other than that, there was drugs. Still, the Drive By Truckers played, and it was one of the great memories I have of the event. You see, on the first day, no one cared where we brought our beer, so we got used to loading in our backpacks and bringing it to the main stage. On the second day, security was more strict, so we couldn't bring it into that area. No matter, it was an open air concert, so we sat outside the entrance drinking beer and listening to the Truckers. People then walked over and kept giving us confiscated beer. I can't remember if they played this song, but I certainly listened to it a lot that summer.

4. Stormy Weather - Lena Horne

During hurricane season, you can be assured I will post this on Facebook. If not me, than one of my friends will. It's a nice jazzy song to mix up all this rock and roll.

5. En Fuego - Los Festingos
https://soundcloud.com/sam-bledsoe/en-fuego
Is this a shameless plug for a friends band? Yes, it is. Did they let me sing group vocals on their new album and let me be the cover of it? Right again! This was inspired by the hot streak we got back in the summer of 2011, and it's just fun. Silly, goofy fun. It chronicles the sadness and despair felt by a man who suddenly finds themselves on fire.

I have so many other songs with other memories attached to them. Here are the runner-ups:

Ventilator Blues - Rolling Stones. Same Festival as above. This just described how I felt the Monday following.

Jack on Fire - Blanche. Cover of an old Gun Club song. This one rocks. There is one F-bomb that everyone I play this to comments on.

Kyle's Song - moe. I am sad I haven't been to a moedown in a few years. I'm poor and have no car. I just grabbed this because Kyle is the friend who introduced me to MOE.

Feel Good Hit of the Summer - Queens of the Stone Age. If I was in a trolling mood, this would have made it. "Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol. K-K-K-K-Cocaine!"

I'm looking forward to reading everyone else's summer songs. Hope you enjoyed these or heard new songs or whatever. Happy Friday.