Spring? Summer? Gethen?

Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring

To Noah and the Whale: what were you thinking releasing this now, boys? It's already summer! Our minds are too busy thinking of huge heart-shaped sunglasses, big tasty cocktails with yellow umbrellas in them, kids with Cloudberry Records T-shirts at festivals, polka-dot bathing suits! We're too distracted by all the annoying racquetball-playing men in Speedos - we can't go back to butterflies and swallows and blossoms! And what's with all the bleakness? It's June! You better plan your recording sessions accordingly so songs about seasons are actually released in the respective season. Ahem. All that said, pretty good song.

The Rural Alberta Advantage - In the Summertime

Now here's a band that has got its seasons right. The song is still not the hand-clapping, belly-shaking, happy-whistling pop that you would want to hear on a beach, but it's just so good it will have to do. I never could whistle anyway.

"And when we're middle aged,
You tell me I loved you like a renegade
And how I say the things that make you sway.
And mostly I tell you you did the same.

And once in a while,
I know our hearts beat out of time.
And once in a while,
I know they'll fall back in line."

Coconut Records - Summer Day

No matter how many times I hear this, the fact that a song with backing vocals by Kirsten Dunst - aka Interview With a Vampire, Spiderman, Mary Antoinette girl and protagonist of a Savage Garden video back in the day - can be so good never ceases to amaze me.


☀ Illustrations by Francisca Pageo and Lisa Kettel ☀
P.S. Noah and the Whale also have a pretty cool cover of Girlfriend in a Coma & Laura Marling a cover of Mary and Rocks & Daggers mashed together in a Noah and the Whale medley - if you're a NATW fan, make sure to look them up on Hype Machine/Elbo.ws!