SONG OF THE WEEK: "Summertime Sun" (1994, from BIG WHITE LIES):

“Holden Caulfield, is that you?”

You’ve probably already read The Catcher In The Rye, and so you know the story of the kid who drops out of prep school and at one point secretly returns home to speak with his little sister. Of course, that’s not the whole story, and I haven't got time to tell you the whole thing. I’m busy now, I really am. It’d be pretty silly for me to do that now anyway, a real phony might try to sell you a messed up version of it here on the Internet. I just wanted to get the ideas into the lyrics. 

I, too, was worried about what happens to the ducks in the lagoon in the wintertime. It’s heavy on the mind to walk around alone, but that’s what I always do. I think about the changing leaves, and who rakes up all that, or if they haven’t been raked, who’s going to? I guess it doesn’t matter, crumby leaves, everything’s rotting and all they care about is who’s coming home for Christmas…and snow- I haven’t seen snow in a long time, like at least two years, and you know what? I don’t even mind shoveling it, if there was a good shovel like we had at home in Phoenix. Snow isn’t bad at all, it’s really not. It makes things quiet, so I can think.

A lot of the songs on Big White Lies were demo’ed in my Ord Street house, then I re-did all the drums in a fancy studio. Except this song, because it didn’t need drums, just one snare drum roll, a dinner bell, and I think I clapped on my thighs. It’s got a “ghost vocal” you can hear where I changed some lyrics after already having recorded the guitar along with the old vocal. 

I sang this at a house concert, one November evening in northern New Jersey, just as the sun was setting. We were looking out on a pond, leaves of all colors fallen everywhere, and there were no ducks. 

During my brief friendship with Eric Carmen, he strummed a guitar and told me how much he liked the high G note hanging on top throughout the chord sequence. I never talk much about song or chord structure with people, so I took this as awesome praise. Later that night we went back to his place and he casually played for me the whole middle part of “All By Myself” on the piano. That killed me.

“I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice.”― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

"Summertime Sun" on Amazon MP3

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