#31 - Indian Summer
Imaginary DJ-ing (in Real Audio clips) for the late-autumn warm weather in the Windy City:
The Glenn Miller Band's version of the jazz classic "Indian Summer" swoons along until you are lost in the park on a Sunday afternoon.
Friends of Dean Martinez strand you out by the cactus and tumbleweed as midnight approaches and winds swoop down over the desert.
At the abandoned carnival grounds at the edge of town, The Doors claim to "love you best / better than all the rest" in their attempt to seduce.
Tangerine Dream toots synthetic down by the factories on the river in their version.
Many have performed the jazz standard: Sidney Bechet, Count Basie, Tony Bennett, just to name a few. Still others have penned songs called "Indian Summer": Poco, just to name one band.
In an apartment building, the breeze blows curtains through a half-open window as Stan Getz whispers romantically over candlelight.
In another apartment, Coleman Hawkins is having a snack.
Earl Hines saunters mellow down past the storefront church, loping along in a ragtime-gospel feel.
Chet Baker locates the chill edging in on the warmth -- a blank, terrifying edge of ice in the lingering summer air (no real audio clip, but you can hear a Windows media player clip from the album, "The Art of the Ballad").
Pedro the Lion's recent "Indian Summer" is ominous and ironic. In this song, God blesses the Indian summer, in which even the weather seems to have been commodified ("All of the experts say you aught to start them young / That way they'll naturally love the taste of corporate cum / God bless the Indian summer") and politicized ("It's my pleasure to announce / In conjunction with the fed / And my recent popularity / Thanks in part to mother nature / It will never rain again...God bless the Indian summer").
One of the best "Indian Summers" belongs to Beat Happening. It starts off with out-of-tune, early-morning, country-porch guitar strumming. Calvin Johnson's lovable-Frankenstein baritone waxes fiercely nostalgic about a rendezvous by "Motorbike to cemetery / Picnic on wild berries / French toast with molasses / Croquet and baked Alaskas."
The song is about a youthful moment, a moment that is paradoxically lost even in its moment, yet remains at the heart of one's identity for ever after. "We will never change / No matter what they say," Johnson sings. "We'll come back for Indian summer / And go our separate ways."
(The Beat Happening's "Indian Summer" was also covered in a more sleek, citified version by Luna and again in a more dreamy form by Luna frontman Dean Wareham and bassist Britta Phillips.)
22 November 2004