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Saturday, September 20, 2003
On the resurgence in popularity of Don Henley's, "Boys of Summer."
Readers, sometimes i recall my times of innocence as a young boy. I recall that, in between being a seething vehicle of hormones and an accomplished public transport frotage exponent , i found time to read Smash Hits, listen to SA-FM in Adelaide and consider some of the popular songs of the day. Infrequently, but often enough to nudge my embryonic reflective powers, versions of songs first performed while i was conscious of nothing much more than my mammy's teat were broadcast. And i wondered about these tunes. Of course, it was all middle of the road pap but i was young, y'see.
Can anyone think of such a song ? Some sort of cover of a seventies song like, "Spirit in the Sky." Was that The Damned or Dr and The Medics ? Or even Bananarama doing "Venus" which was a cover of some song from so far back I had doubts sound had even been invented at the time. Or if i can draw a parallel between a song from a slightly more recent time of my life, say a song like, Superchunk's, "Train from Kansas City," a song by The Shangri-La's. "What inspired the artiste to pick this tune? This fossil from an earlier strata of some music era unknown to moi?" This, if not in exactly those words, was what i thought.
And, now, readers i find myself asking the same question but this time about artistes covering tunes that i know. And the question occurs to me most frequently in relation to the Don Henley tune, "Boys of Summer." Now, i must go on record here and say i remember this song vividly from it's earlier incarnation. And remember it fondly. At the time though, it was not the height of fashion for a 14 year old boy to rate this song. It was the days of androgyny, a dangerous concept in the playground of a boy's Catholic school. Days of Duran Duran, Culture Club, Frankie, Human League; mainly English gear with some American rock thrown in.
Wasn't Don Henley in The Eagles ? In the early 80's if you were 14, The Eagles were not cool but i liked Boys of Summer and the film clip of the beach and the chick and the talk of Wayfarers which were sunglasses so inconceivably cool that i could only dream. I'd say as an aside, Glen Frey was also in The Eagles and around the same time as Boys of Summer he did a song, The Heat is On, that appeared on the first Beverley Hills Cop soundtrack. I always thought that helped Henley's cred but do we see covers of The Heat is On being pumped out today. No we don't. But Henley, Christ, punkers are covering him, (The Ataris), dance oufits are covering him, (DJ Sammy) and you can even get Boys of Summer ringtones.
I may return later to discuss my thoughts on what this says about the circular nature of time, our unceasing recycling of recent history and what Faulkner may have meant when he said, "The past is not dead. It is not even past." Consider your entree, finished. Now put your knife and fork on the plate and just wait for the man to take them away..
Can anyone think of such a song ? Some sort of cover of a seventies song like, "Spirit in the Sky." Was that The Damned or Dr and The Medics ? Or even Bananarama doing "Venus" which was a cover of some song from so far back I had doubts sound had even been invented at the time. Or if i can draw a parallel between a song from a slightly more recent time of my life, say a song like, Superchunk's, "Train from Kansas City," a song by The Shangri-La's. "What inspired the artiste to pick this tune? This fossil from an earlier strata of some music era unknown to moi?" This, if not in exactly those words, was what i thought.
And, now, readers i find myself asking the same question but this time about artistes covering tunes that i know. And the question occurs to me most frequently in relation to the Don Henley tune, "Boys of Summer." Now, i must go on record here and say i remember this song vividly from it's earlier incarnation. And remember it fondly. At the time though, it was not the height of fashion for a 14 year old boy to rate this song. It was the days of androgyny, a dangerous concept in the playground of a boy's Catholic school. Days of Duran Duran, Culture Club, Frankie, Human League; mainly English gear with some American rock thrown in.
Wasn't Don Henley in The Eagles ? In the early 80's if you were 14, The Eagles were not cool but i liked Boys of Summer and the film clip of the beach and the chick and the talk of Wayfarers which were sunglasses so inconceivably cool that i could only dream. I'd say as an aside, Glen Frey was also in The Eagles and around the same time as Boys of Summer he did a song, The Heat is On, that appeared on the first Beverley Hills Cop soundtrack. I always thought that helped Henley's cred but do we see covers of The Heat is On being pumped out today. No we don't. But Henley, Christ, punkers are covering him, (The Ataris), dance oufits are covering him, (DJ Sammy) and you can even get Boys of Summer ringtones.
I may return later to discuss my thoughts on what this says about the circular nature of time, our unceasing recycling of recent history and what Faulkner may have meant when he said, "The past is not dead. It is not even past." Consider your entree, finished. Now put your knife and fork on the plate and just wait for the man to take them away..
