‘Tis the season when practically every media outlet starts publishing stories about “the songs of summer,” and the music we whip out when we head to the beach or pool. (The A.V. Club isn’t immune; we did our original AVQ&A on “songs that feel most like summer” around this time two years ago.) But is music really that seasonal? Are there any songs you only listen to at a particular time of year?
Tasha Robinson
The summer-song phenomenon fascinates me, because for the most part, I really don’t have music I set aside in the summer with my sweaters, or pull out in spring along with my sandals. I can’t help but wonder whether the entire idea of the summer song is just driven by the idea that we’re all more likely to hear each other’s music when we’re all driving around with our car windows down, or leaving our apartment windows open, or listening to music in public spaces, so suddenly it seems like we’re all listening to the same soundtrack. But anyway. My only real seasonal song has nothing to do with summer: It’s Kristin Hersh’s “Your Ghost,” a song that’s always summed up the melancholy of autumn for me. It’s the one song I reliably pull out every year at a certain time, when the leaves start dropping and the wind picks up and the air gets cold, because the melody sounds like all those things to me at once.
Jason Heller
Despite Death In June’s (kind of) summery name, I just can’t listen to the group when the sun is bright and the breeze blows warm. So it stays tucked away in my hard drive until shit starts icing over—which in my hometown of Denver is later than you might think. In fact, Denver is one of the sunniest cities in the country (no lie), so sometimes it’s November-ish before I can comfortably break out Death In June classics like 1986’s black-humored The World That Summer and get my glum on. When it was released, the band’s leader, Douglas P., had just crept out from under the industrial shadows of Joy Division and Killing Joke and into his chilling folk phase. The World That Summer is as stark and bleak as the apocalyptic winters I only wish Denver had.
Sarah Collins
I also don’t have music that’s specific to a season, although I maybe listen to a little more pop-punk in the summer and a little more Weakerthans in the winter. But I have marked the start of fall the same way every year since I bought Hüsker Dü’s New Day Rising when I was 14. “Celebrated Summer” isn’t a summery song by any stretch, but it is the perfect blend of melancholy and muscle for saying goodbye to the best months of the year and preparing for the freeze. When I was a teenager, that meant lying on my bedroom floor and mourning the end of freedom and the start of a new school year. Now I mostly just jam it while I try to come up with a convincing plan for making summer office hours a year-round thing.
Keith Phipps
I’m sure it has everything to do with when I first heard it—in the middle of a long, dark, frankly crappy December—but I always associate the soundtrack to Wim Wenders’ Until The End Of The World with winter, and tend to break it out when the weather turns cold. It’s a great collection that includes contributions from R.E.M., Lou Reed, my favorite Nick Cave song, a great Kinks cover from Elvis Costello, and more. Frankly, it’s better as an album than the film is as a film—though I’d love to see the director’s cut, which is reputed to work better even though it has a ridiculously long running time. And it sounds like winter to me.
Cory Casciato
There’s plenty of music I associate, loosely, with various seasons, but the only hard-and-fast seasonal song I have is Deep Dish’s “Summer’s Over.” True to its name, the song’s crisp beat, wavering synths, and hints of melancholic melody are a perfect fit for that first day when the cool breaks cold and you realize that the last of summer is gone and fall has arrived for real. For that reason, I break out the 12-inch I bought during my DJ days and play it, once a year, every year, when that day arrives.