Summer and other, similar sensations

In other news, my Windows Media Player refuses to burn CDs. Thankfully, Seph is Vaio-tastic and has other software for the purposes of messing about with audio files. Granted, the current state of my music library is scattered and sparse, but this does not stop me from attempting mix CDs.

I've been wanting to do a summer/travel themed mix all summer, and I only just got around to putting it together. I'm going to have to redo this one, but I think it was rather successful for a first attempt.

1 The Ataris, "Boys of Summer" You couldn't honestly expect me to make a vaguely upbeat, summer CD and not include this song, could you? Of course not.

2 Great Big Circles, "FFAdventure Begin at the End of the Beginning OC Remix" I love this mix. I love FFA, and I love this mix to itty bitty pieces; it combines the best parts of the soundtrack and makes them better.

3 Imogen Heap, "Hide and Seek" One of the low energy tracks on the CD. The harmonies make my spine tingle, but mostly this song gets included because one of the defining moments of the beginning of my summer was watching the season finale of The OC- they played this song three times throughout the episode. S'a good song, regardles of the associations.

4 Better than Ezra, "Extra Ordinary" This was on one of the store tapes at Eddie Bauer last year. It's also just a good, upbeat song, with the sort of vocally driven, sparse instrumental style that I think characterizes hot weather music.

5 Don Henly, "Walking in Memphis" This is an all year song, but I first realized I loved it when I heard it on the radio at the shore. That association (dancing in the living room despite the heat), as much as my absolute love for it, gets it a place on the CD.

6 Coldplay, "Clocks" This track doesn't actually belong, and I'll take it off when I redo the mix. "Clocks" is a February song for me, through and through.

7 Luna Sea, "Aurora" My first and favorite Luna Sea song. I'll have to do a song call post for it once I find the lyrics and translation for it. I don't listen to much Jrock or Jpop; Luna Sea is the only group I actually enjoy. I first downloaded "Aurora" on a whim a few summers ago, so I'm quite fond of it.

8 Filter, "Take a Picture" The music video had a sunken airplane and people swimming. It's always been one of my "refreshignly cool songs," along with being a defining song of ninth grade- and ninth grade was really just one long, arduous summer vacation for me in so many ways.

9 Sarah MacLachlan, "Possession" Technically I ought to have summer associations with this song, but most of them have been eaten by Norway (fucking Norway!). this one is also out of place, and won't make the final cut.

10 Jim's Big Ego, "Stress" High energy, vocally driven crack. I love this song so hard. "And sand fleas? Sand fleas? Yuck!"

11 Moxy Fruvous, "BJ Don't Cry" More high energy, vocally driven crack.

12 The Postal Service, "Such Great Heights" I like this version (the original) better than the Iron and Wine cover, because it's so much brighter. It's a song for traveling- long car rides especially, and journeys that take you far away and back again. Summer is all about journeys: roadtrips; vacations; self exploration just for the hell of it, because there's nothing else to do in all this heat.

13 Indigo Girls, "Galileo" Dad used to pick up very random mix CDs in San Francisco, and one of the ones he brought home had this song on it. He played it while driving down the shore a few years ago, and it's always stuck in my head as a song to associate with him, and with that stretch of the parkway outside of Forked River at night. Just pine trees and the road, and a sort of lonely hopefulness.

14 Origa, "Inner Universe" It's the opening to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which I only started watching this summer. It's also full of multilingual, transcendental, spine tingling harmonics, and the base line makes me happy.

15 Blind Melon, "No Rain" Technically this ought to be a November song, but it's a song I associate with Squeaky as well as November, and Squeaky, for some reason, is a summer association in my head.

16 Jason Mraz, "The Remedy" My ultimate happy song; I couldn't make a mix and not include it, and I spent all of the summer of 2003 listening to it.

I give everything seasonal associations; people, music, food, books- it's what I do. I may do mixes for each season, but for now I'll work on perfecting this one.

If anybody wants any of these songs, leave a comment and I'll put up a yousendit for 'em.