SUMMER’S ALMOST GONE<\/p>\n
Summer’s almost gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you know this song?\u00c2\u00a0 From "Waiting For The Sun"? <\/p>\n
"Waiting For The Sun" is the forgotten Doors album.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the one within
which they couldn’t decide who they were.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether they were hitmakers or
iconoclastic outsiders.\u00c2\u00a0 The first record had contained the unforeseen hit "Light My
Fire" (EVERYTHING’S unforeseen before you release your first album.)\u00c2\u00a0 But
really, that first record is a dark masterpiece.\u00c2\u00a0 As if you stumbled into a
German beer hall sat down amongst California hippies and they started telling their
stories.<\/p>\n
California had a different image in the late sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 A certain darkness.\u00c2\u00a0
But at this distance it’s not clear whether the Doors were part of the milieu
or they CREATED the milieu.\u00c2\u00a0 This was not the Beach Boys.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like someone
lifted the carpet and there was this band playing under the rug.\u00c2\u00a0 Reporting what
was going on down there.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that they were stuck there.\u00c2\u00a0 One listen to "The
Crystal Ship" let you know although they might be stationary, the band was
traveling in their minds.\u00c2\u00a0 And you wanted to go on this adventure.<\/p>\n
The piece de resistance, of course, was "The End".\u00c2\u00a0 So different from what
was out there that it’s still fresh today.<\/p>\n
But the follow-up, "Strange Days", although not without peaks, seemed to be a
repeat of the formula.\u00c2\u00a0 "When The Music’s Over" had the length of "The End",
but only a fraction of its impact.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was no hit.<\/p>\n
But then there was "Hello, I Love You".\u00c2\u00a0 It would be like "System Of A Down"
working with Max Martin.\u00c2\u00a0 It was TOO catchy.\u00c2\u00a0 It was GOOD, but…<\/p>\n
And it seemed that the longest cut on "Waiting For The Sun", the album that
led off with "Hello, I Love You", was EXCISED!\u00c2\u00a0 The lyrics were inside the
gatefold, but the song was not on the record.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was still a modicum of
darkness, but none of the same existential peaks.\u00c2\u00a0 "Waiting For The Sun" was a
return to sales form, but it was an artistic disappointment.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet I purchased
it, because I’d bought the first two albums.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d had a special experience with
the first record.\u00c2\u00a0 Involving a wild afternoon with some girls.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, not by
today’s definition of "wild", it was more of a cerebral event.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is what
the Doors’ music was at the time anyway.<\/p>\n
So I know every note of "Waiting For The Sun".\u00c2\u00a0 And three weeks ago when the
weather began changing "Summer’s Almost Gone" started running through my
brain.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d walk outside my front door and it would be sunny, it’s always sunny in
Southern California, but I didn’t feel the heat on my skin.\u00c2\u00a0 The sun wasn’t at
the same angle.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was this briskness in the air.\u00c2\u00a0 And the days were
getting shorter.<\/p>\n
And then there was the night I woke up cold.\u00c2\u00a0 Summer was almost gone.<\/p>\n
In the middle of summer you don’t have to rush.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s enough time to do
everything.\u00c2\u00a0 But, if you don’t get started early in fall, certainly in the
winter, you run out of daylight.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s creepy.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially for someone like me,
who is not an early starter.<\/p>\n
Not that fall in Southern California is like fall on the east coast, where I
grew up.\u00c2\u00a0 Fall in SoCal heralds nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t have to change your
clothing.\u00c2\u00a0 Snow is not in the offing.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe occasional rain, but the temperature
only drops ten degrees.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, it’s different.\u00c2\u00a0 No one goes to the beach anymore.
Everyone’s back in school.\u00c2\u00a0 You feel your life slipping through your
fingers.\u00c2\u00a0 Another year dead and gone.\u00c2\u00a0 What to do with the remaining time?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you grab hold, or just cruise?<\/p>\n
EASY ROLLIN’<\/p>\n
One could argue that the Young Rascals were the east coast precursors to the
Doors.\u00c2\u00a0 They had this certain grittiness.\u00c2\u00a0 Their singles held no compromise.\u00c2\u00a0
And they had a certain bit of that Southern California sunniness, the one that
emerged in "Hello, I love You".\u00c2\u00a0 "Groovin’" was almost schmaltzy, but you
couldn’t resist it.\u00c2\u00a0 You couldn’t resist the first three Young Rascals albums.\u00c2\u00a0
Not the first with "I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore", not "Collections"
with "Come On Up", "What Is The Reason", "Too Many Fish In The Sea" and "Love
Is A Beautiful Thing", nor the third, "Groovin’", with not only the title
track but "A Girl Like You" and "How Can I Be Sure".\u00c2\u00a0 With that kind of track
record you had to buy the next album as soon as it was released, before you heard
a single note.<\/p>\n
And that’s how I gained possession of "Once Upon A Dream".\u00c2\u00a0 The album that
cured me of my Rascals addiction.<\/p>\n
Yes, they’d changed the name.\u00c2\u00a0 They’d grown up.\u00c2\u00a0 They had pretensions.\u00c2\u00a0 They
were somehow SELF-CONSCIOUS after making this music that seemed to come
directly from their guts rather than their minds.<\/p>\n
I kept playing "Once Upon A Dream" waiting for it to reveal itself.\u00c2\u00a0 I
fingered the cover, the black inner sleeve, in an era when Atlantic still advertised
other albums on the paper pocket holding the record.<\/p>\n
Then I had to give up.\u00c2\u00a0 I just didn’t get it.<\/p>\n
Oh, I got the marginal hit "It’s Wonderful".\u00c2\u00a0 A trifle compared to the hits
that came before.\u00c2\u00a0 And I also got "Easy Rollin’".<\/p>\n
1968 was the year of transition.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only to FM, but to STEREO!<\/p>\n
Yes, prior to this we’d played our albums on little boxes.\u00c2\u00a0 With heavy
tonearms.\u00c2\u00a0 But, like the Internet revolution the stereo revolution swept the
country.\u00c2\u00a0 If you had a TURNTABLE and some decent speakers you could hear things in the records, little stuff that made you feel part of a special club, that would
ELATE YOU!<\/p>\n
"Easy Rollin’"’s got a great groove.\u00c2\u00a0 But what truly puts it over the top is
the SOUND!\u00c2\u00a0 You could HEAR the acoustic guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 The organ had texture.\u00c2\u00a0 And
the BREATHS!\u00c2\u00a0 The AHHS!\u00c2\u00a0 The MMMS!\u00c2\u00a0 The birds in the background.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a
whole ENVIRONMENT!\u00c2\u00a0 It was MAGICAL!<\/p>\n
You’ve got to picture it.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m fifteen.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like I never touched a
girl, never kissed a girl, but I won’t say I lived a life of fulfillment.\u00c2\u00a0 I was
not the most popular boy in the class, far from it.\u00c2\u00a0 I was not captain of the
football team.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew a couple of cheerleaders, but they didn’t\/wouldn’t hang
with me.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I might get a word or two in class, but that was IT!\u00c2\u00a0 Although I
was interacting with people all day, really I was living in a bubble.\u00c2\u00a0 A rock
and roll bubble.<\/p>\n
Easy rollin’, ain’t no need to hurry at all I didn’t get to bed last night until just before the sun came up.\u00c2\u00a0 At that And I finally caught up on a week’s worth of sleep.<\/p>\n But when I woke up…\u00c2\u00a0 Much of the day had already passed.<\/p>\n I checked my e-mail and then sat down at the kitchen table for a late There was no music playing.\u00c2\u00a0 I was reading the New York and Los Angeles It’s kind of like going to a restaurant.\u00c2\u00a0 No longer how good the special I’m livin’ a dream a minute, deep down within it I thought back to high school.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought back to who I used to be.<\/p>\n I wasn’t reflecting, it was part of a CONTINUUM.\u00c2\u00a0 It was STILL ME!<\/p>\n We grow older, but people only shed their skin.\u00c2\u00a0 You take who you are, your It’s how you square it with reality, what’s happening now.<\/p>\n I want to stop time.\u00c2\u00a0 Give summer a few extra months.\u00c2\u00a0 I want to go back to You realize at some point you’re closer to the end than the beginning.\u00c2\u00a0 The You find it in one place.\u00c2\u00a0 Those great old records.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SUMMER’S ALMOST GONE Summer’s almost gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you know this song?\u00c2\u00a0 From "Waiting For The Sun"? "Waiting For The Sun" is the forgotten Doors album.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the one within which they couldn’t decide who they were.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether they were hitmakers or iconoclastic outsiders.\u00c2\u00a0 The first record had contained the unforeseen hit "Light My Fire" […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-2v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It’s just a special mornin’ when I wake yawnin’
And sun is shinin’
I feel like I’ve been dreamin’ and freelance schemin’
On colored rainbows<\/em><\/p>\n
hour EVERYTHING you read seems interesting.<\/p>\n
lunch\/breakfast.<\/p>\n
"Times".\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a whole world out there.\u00c2\u00a0 You kind of forget.\u00c2\u00a0 You get wrapped up
in your own life.\u00c2\u00a0 Even on the Internet…that’s an alternative universe,
CYBERSPACE, where everybody can afford a computer, where everybody ELSE is
removed from what’s going on.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m basking in what sunshine is left, pouring through the dining room windows.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m groovin’.\u00c2\u00a0 And then a song starts playing in my head.\u00c2\u00a0 "Easy Rollin’".<\/p>\n
sounds, you’ve got to go with your gut.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if you’ve had chicken the night
before, if it feels right now you’ve got to get it, or else you won’t be happy.\u00c2\u00a0
My iPod was on Poco.\u00c2\u00a0 But I FORCED myself to dial in "Easy Rollin’".\u00c2\u00a0 I knew
something else would sound GOOD, but nothing else would RESONATE!<\/p>\n
My life’s a flower
I think that I wouldn’t change or rearrange
A single hour<\/em><\/p>\n
history, EVERYWHERE!<\/p>\n
the east coast and not only examine my roots, but live them!\u00c2\u00a0 Go back and see
all those people.\u00c2\u00a0 Feel that nip in the air.\u00c2\u00a0 Stay home all afternoon and read
a book while the thunder cracks and the rain comes pouring down.<\/p>\n
values you held, your world view, they’ve been usurped by a new reality.\u00c2\u00a0 You
want constancy.<\/p>\n