The Great Summer Anthem

And Frank Della Noce's VW Bug... A Foreigner cassette... And Donna Benoitt's tank tops...

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It’s Memorial Day weekend, the ‘unofficial’ start of summer, so let’s take a break from music therapy and focus on… summertime music!

Summer is (in my opinion) the best ‘season’ for music - It’s the beach, outdoor parties, cook outs, summer concerts, windows down and sound up. We don’t generally have a Fall or Winter ‘anthem’, but summer? Well… music just enhances the lazy, hazy days.

We know that songs bring us back—to people, to places—and prompts memories, (our music memories are our strongest memories) and the songs of summer, the soundtrack of sun and fun and all that goes with it, is where most of the best memories are made.

The Summer Anthem

It may be a collective song of a particular summer, a song from a summer blockbuster, or a personal song that stamped a summer memory that when you hear it, it puts you right back in Frank Della Noce’s beat up VW Bug. (See below.)

We all have those great summer anthems. And when we hear them, we can practically feel the ocean breeze, the warm sand on our feet, and smile about that memorable summer ‘fling’ or that special someone that stayed with us through the cold winters to come. The songs that take us back to youthful and carefree times. Make us feel good. And give us a shot of dopamine in the brain. (Well… maybe a little music therapy.)

For me, most summer music memories are based around cars, driving, and girls - looking for girls… imaginary girls…. thinking about girls…

The summer of 1980: Frank Della Noce was the first of our crew to get his license. And… he had a car! A beat up, 12-year-old VW Bug that we sometimes had to push to get started. We had just finished sophomore year and things were happening. Things started popping up. (I’m talking about our acne pocked faces), and things started stirring up inside us, especially when the summer heat arrived - and when Donna Benoitt started wearing tank tops. Like I said… things started popping up.

In the evenings, after our summer jobs as dish washers, or mowing lawns, we’d all pile into Frank’s beat-up bug. (Glad he didn’t bring the ‘other’ car. Frank’s family was in the funeral business and Frank would occasionally drive the hearse to school. Once we even sat in it and listened to a Rush cassette. It didn’t seem all that weird at the time.) We had very little money. We had nowhere to go. But we would drive. And we would ‘look’ for girls. (I don’t think we ever found any, and not sure what we would have done if we had, but it was all about the chase… possibilities.)

The testosterone level in the car was as high as the volume crunching out of a speaker in the trunk that belonged in a 1970s den. Frank couldn’t afford oil or spark plugs, and sometimes we had to crawl out of the window on the passenger side because the door wouldn’t open, but he had a killer sound system. Someone just got the new Foreigner cassette, ‘Double Vision’, and as we started our evening journey, we popped it in (yeah, a lot of things were popping then) and Track 1 – ‘Hot Blooded’ started the soundtrack of our pent up teenage angst.

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No song in the history of music represents the transformation of my youth into adolescence than what I felt then and there… that summer—hot blooded, desire, the need for release, the pursuit of Donna Benoitt in a tank top—while driving around in an old VW Bug. That song represented the summer when things started popping.

When I hear that song now, I feel it all again. I feel… youthful. I feel… virile. I feel my temperature rising… (I feel something ‘popping’?) and I think of the carefree times of just having to worry about having a little gas money, or money for a burger. What we were going to do on the weekend. Friends. Youth. Possibilities. Cars. Girls in tank tops… My ultimate summer anthem - Hot Blooded.

Hot Blooded

“Well, I'm hot blooded, check it and see
I got a fever of a hundred and three
Come on baby, do you do more than dance?
I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded

Every night
(Hot blooded) you're lookin' so tight
(Hot blooded) now you're drivin' me wild
(Hot blooded, hot blooded) I'm so hot for you, child

I'm a little bit high
(Hot blooded) you're a little bit shy
(Hot blooded) you're makin' me sing
(Hot blooded, hot blooded) for your sweet, sweet thing…

What is your ultimate summer anthem? What is the one song that takes you back? Brings out the best summer memories for you? Makes you feel like something is popping? Let me know in comments below. I love hearing from you!

And here is my current ‘ultimate’ summer playlist. Enjoy! (And what songs can I add?)

The healing power of music…

Raymond Leone, MMT, MT-BC is a board-certified music therapist based in Northern Virginia and writes extensively about music and wellness.