Summertime Music

In honor of the long-overdue arrival of summery weather, I got out and listened to the two albums that I most strongly associate with summer: "Daydream Nation" by Sonic Youth and "Painful" by Yo La Tengo. There are other things in my CD collection that also go well with summer weather, but it is these two that seem to most naturally inhabit the hotter months. Some of the strong association may be that I first heard and grew to love each of those albums during summer. But I do think there's something about the songs and the sounds themselves. Nothing conjures up the feeling of a hot July day like the opening of "Daydream Nation" - that little guitar riff isn't nearly as satisfying if listened to on a snowy day in January (unless the goal is to remind myself of what summertime feels like). And Yo La Tengo's warm, almost reedy guitar sound is so strongly associated with June weather in my mind, that I often find myself pulling out the album to listen to at the very beginning of spring, as if it will speed the good weather along.

So what music do other people associate with summer?

Book Review

Price for a Princess
by Nigel Tranter

This was a nice, quick read: a short, straightforward historical novel about Mary Stewart, sister to late 14th century Scottish monarch James III. There's a lot of politics and diplomacy, and some romance. It's also a decent portrayal of both the advantages and disadvantages of being a noblewoman in the late middle ages.