The Summer Anthem

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

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It’s Memorial Day weekend, the ‘unofficial’ start of summer! So it’s time to get into ‘summer music’ mode.

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

We know that songs bring us back – to people, to places – and prompt memories, (our music memories are some of 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 reside…

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, (I’m talking about our acne pocked faces), and things started stirring inside us – especially when the summer heat arrived. (And when Donna Benoitt started wearing tank tops.) Like I said… things started popping.

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 he would occasionally drive the hearse to school. Once we even sat in it and listened to a brand new Rush cassette. But that’s a story for another day.) We had 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 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 (a lot of things were popping then) and Track 1 – ‘Hot Blooded’ started the soundtrack of the summer of our pent up teenage angst.

The Summer Anthem

It may be a collective song of a particular summer, a song from a summer blockbuster, or a song that simply hits home and is stamped with a summer memory that when you hear it, it brings you right back to Frank’s beat up VW Bug.

We all have our favorite summer anthems. And for me, 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 represents the summer when things, well, started popping.

My ultimate summer anthem is… Hot Blooded.

“Well I’m hot blooded, check it and see

I got a fever of a hundred and three

C’mon baby do you do more that dance?

I’m hot blooded, I’m hot blooded…

When I hear this song now, I feel it all again… I’m right back there, in the suburbs of Baltimore, without a worry to be found.

That’s what great songs, meaningful music, does. It gives us that kick, and for 4 minutes and 28 seconds takes the weight of the world away. I’ll be listening to Foreigner (and Van Halen, Rush, Boston) this weekend to get into summer mode. How about you?

(I wonder what Donna Benoitt is up to these days? Frank too I suppose. Windows down… volume up… let’s go!)

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 the comments below. I love hearing from you!

Bonus! - Here’s my current Ultimate Summer playlist. Enjoy! (What songs can I add?)

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

The healing power of music.

(The story presented in this newsletter is based on actual accounts or experiences.)

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

Did you know that if you hit the heart at the top or the bottom of this email you will make my day and it will make it easier for others to find this publication. Thanks!