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Dusty Summer Mix

(Mix on muxtape)

There are two types of summer song – the bouncy, fun, driving through rolling hills with the top down kind, and the dusty, stick to the couch as the day whiles away kind. Lots of blogs have been posting mixes built using the former construction.

This mix is an homage to the latter. Unlike those, it’s not about the trip to the beach, but to the world that doesn’t have the wherewithal for such leisurely escapades. It’s for all the times when you feel stuck in limbo, head hanging off the couch as you mindlessly stare at black and white daytime TV during summer vacation. It’s for the dusty Southern California towns at the furthest outskirts of LA, where it wouldn’t take much to imagine us 100 years ago, with a herd of cattle instead of a television, or sitting on a rocking chair on a hand built porch watching the sun, reddened with dust, slip over the horizon.

1. Neko Case – A Widow’s Toast

Neko is a siren, singing laments to the passing cowboys.

2. The Mountain Goats – Wild Sage

In the loneliness of the summer, with the rolling heat waves as your only companion, the cloak of sanity can easily slip off. You keep wanting to escape the worldview you’ve settled upon, but no matter how hard you try, the dust of your failure dulls the sheen of your future.

3. Iron & Wine / Calexico – Prison on Route 41

Ambling along the side of the road, kicking some cans, the clouds from passing cars soliciting coughs, you think of the family you’ve lost. Life is hard when you’re poor, and the summer sun makes you think of all kinds of crazy things – like breaking into the prison, and tearing the walls down yourself.

4. Mojave 3 – Trying to Reach You

Nothing emphasizes the slow movement and devastation of a summer of lament like the soft chorus of a banjo and dulcimer. They just have to stay in the background or else they become distracting.

5. Low – Violent Past

Sometimes the weather is simply crushing, the heat a bubble of air you push into when you leave the shade. It leads to hot tempers – but are they the result of the past or the present circumstances? Mired in poverty, are you to blame? Or is that the path you’re just destined to be on?

6. I Love Math – Josephine Street

We had to move away from the deliberate descent into despair, and this is the perfect counter-argument. The subdued excitement of this song was actually the inspiration for this mix.

7. Gomez – Tijuana Lady

A lazy voice narrating a lazy day. But oh, the excitement you can find in a pile of white powder..

8. Midlake – Van Occupanther

You have to try, you have to push, you have to make it out alive. You may not be successful, you may push on past your limits, but somewhere, somehow, you’ll move on. You’ll rise above your station, you’ll find happiness.

But they’ll be jealous. They’ll mock your intensity, your success. The escape you sought becomes a banishment.

9. Shearwater – Nobody

A domestic disturbance, in the slow motion of memory, seems just a little less painful, a little more rationalized. And you proceed on, with the hopefulness of a child, as the crows line your walk of shame home.

And one time the sun sets the last time.

10. The Decemberists – Shankill Butchers

Searching for firewood in the tumbling twilight, the trees menace with tales of the murderers that haunt these woods. From behind each tree trunk you expect a killer to spring, knife in hand, violent lust in the eyes. Each whisper is a plea to the judge for clemency, a cackle at the lack of remorse.

And you come back to the camp, and in hushed tones tell the tale of the red eyes watching you from the underbrush, of the prison break up the road. You shiver in horror, chills running like marathon ants up and down your spine, but you’ve stared the terror of the wilderness in the eye, so these little horrors are comforting in their absurdity.

11. M. Ward – Eyes on the Prize

Nothing is sweeter than the moment of first love, eyes blinded, mind numbed to all but the beauty serendipity has brought you. But you have to take this gift or it will walk away, out the doors of the bar, where the night air will hide her away for eternity.

12. The Veils – Under the Folding Branches

Sometimes you notice the man on stage, crooning over his piano about love’s lament. Sometimes his song, his heartbroken voice, is so beautiful that you remember that you love who you are, what the world offers you. This place, this life, these endless summer afternoons where you vacillate between the desperation of your position and the fear that you can’t become anything, are just little trials for your future. This patch of earth is who you are, and even if you leave, it forged you. It’s worth remembering for that alone.