“Full Moon, so soon, wishin’ every month of the year could be June…”

That’s Jimmy Buffett, friends, and those lyrics pop into my head (from the song “Clichés”, off the 1976 album Havana Daydreamin’) every June, have since tenth grade when I first became a Parrot Head.

Some Parrot Heads spell it Parrothead, but I don’t. You hear me? I DO NOT. And yes, it’s silly to pick fights within the community because internal squabbles are so not what we’re about.

 Yes, I am a Parrot Head, and if you want to make something of it, go right ahead, I’m having too much fun to care. Is it true that even cosplay geeks think we’re lame? Maybe…but I can’t worry about that, because I’m too busy trying to balance a blow-up shark on my head.

Truthfully, I’m not an active member any more, I mean I haven’t actually been to a Buffett concert in years—mostly because when he comes to my town (which is seldom) he plays an indoor arena and that’s just wrong. And driving to a different state to watch him play outdoors is even wronger, at this point in my life.

There was a time when I did that a lot, several times a summer, as a matter of fact. In the early years of our marriage, my husband and I planned our vacations around Buffett shows. Aaaaand, respectable and upstanding Medium Happy readers who care about things like voter fraud and the NBA finals, I did not consider the show a true success if I was not, at some point during the evening, escorted out by security.

Backing up just a smidge, I was a savvy and slippery stage-stormer in my day; if I didn’t actually make it onto the stage, I, at the very least, attempted to claw my way  to the front row and was usually successful.

By the time I was a full-tilt Parrot Head, it had become just as much about the challenge of outsmarting security as it was about getting a better view, for which I had not paid.

I had a rep to protect; it was a matter of pride… strange, since I am now more than a little embarrassed to tell you, the last time I tried it and was intercepted by a beefy guard juuuust before launching myself off the shoulders of a stranger and onto the stage, I was not wearing pants.

Ahhh, life…my idea of a great night now is one where nothing on me hurts enough to need icing and the cat deigns to sit with me, but to quote Mr. Buffett  again, I’m still A Hula Girl at Heart.

It’s summer! Yaaaaaayyyyyy summer…and much as I hate to admit it, which is not at all, there are scads and scads of great summer songs.  What exactly makes a song a ‘summer song’?

Well, I don’t know if anyone’s ever come up with a hard and fast definition, but I think we can safely agree it’s a song that doesn’t have the word ‘Christmas’ in it or is about pot roast or sitting in a musty library.

Wait just a sec…what about “Love in the Library”, off Jimmy Buffett’s 1994 album Fruitcakes? 

That’s why he’s a genius, Buffett deniers!

OK—but no pot roast and no Christmas. That’s the criteria, sorry, The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band:

Not a summer song, but I’m feeling like we’ll circle back to it come fall

 Herewith is my list of favorite summer songs from each decade I’ve celebrated the season, and that are not from Jimmy Buffett (because that wouldn’t be a fair fight, and if you were to ask me what my five favorite Buffett songs are, I would just crumple in a heap of frustrated tears).

And don’t ask James Van Der Beek either!

 The 70’s: “Band on the Run”

Hands down winner, not even close, from Paul McCartney and Wings in 1973.

This song immediately brings me back to being shoved in the way, way back of our family’s Vista Cruiser with my brothers Billy and Andy on what felt like the two-hour ride to the pool, me wearing the Winnie-the-Pooh swimsuit that for three summers, I donned the last day of school and didn’t peel off until September.

Can you see me back there?

I loved that bathing suit; Winnie-the-Pooh was a popular theme in my wardrobe—I also had a smock-style dress (no waist, barely cleared my backside) covered with Ernest Shepard’s illustrations that I wore on the first day of Kindergarten. It had a huge Peter-pan collar and a red bow and it was awesome.

Anyway, on the front of the swimsuit, Winnie-the-Pooh (the Disney Pooh, not Mr. Shepard’s version) was holding a big red balloon, and smaller, multi-colored balloons peppered the rest of it. It was made out of some weird fabric that wasn’t really ‘bathing suit’ material—it was kind of thick and stiff, didn’t have a lot of give.

Whichever version you prefer, neither will help you in the pool

 Maybe that’s just because I never took it off or washed it. By the third summer, the arm, neck and leg holes were so stretched out, it really only touched my body in the middle, plus it was way too small…but what finally spurred me to give it up was, I joined the swim team and showed up wearing it to the first practice.

All the other girls were in Speedos. One of them was quick to loudly point out that I looked like a dope, and I cried, and my mom took me to get a Speedo of my own.  It didn’t make me a better swimmer. Neither did daily practice (maybe because I spent most of them hiding in the locker room?) and I quit the team the next year.

Back to that interminable car ride! If my mom was driving, the windows would be down and a cyclone-like breeze would be tearing through the car, but if it was one of the older boys taking us, the ‘no windows down’ rule would be implemented in order to make that refreshing first dive into the pool all the more delicious.

The more sweaty and light-headed we were as we rolled around on that scratchy carpet back there, sans seat belts, the better…but no matter who was driving, “Band on the Run” came on at least twice on the way out and three times on the way home (or maybe I was just hallucinating).

The 80’s: “Vacation”

This was a tough one, kids, there were so many good songs to choose from, and I alllllmooooost had to go with a song from my angsty teenage years because I felt everything so very, very deeply. But when I looked deep inside myself, and by that I mean I ate a large hunk of cheese, I simply couldn’t justify choosing Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” over the Go Go’s classic 1982 call to arms.

OK, maybe not a call to arms, but that’s what came out as I typed and John is an indulgent editor, so it can’t be helped.

SUCH A FUN SONG!!!

It came out when I was in 7^th grade, when the biggest problem I had was whether or not Michelle Manion’s cute older brother would be home if I went over to her house to jump on her trampoline. (Of course there wasn’t a net. Part of the fun was landing hard on the cement!)

The 90’s : “MMM Bop”

Hanson, 1997

Stop acting like you don’t love it. Just stop it or I will have to remind you what happens every time this song comes on during a wedding reception that you are at, or any other time for that matter.

You at that thing that one time when MMMBop came on

The Ought’s: “Sunshine and Summertime”

Faith Hill, 2005

At this point on our list, I’m a full-blown adult who pays taxes, has a bunch of kids of my own and reaches for sunscreen before I leave the house, and the whole idea of a summer song is more about invoking nostalgic feelings than anything else.

This song harkens back to those days when I rocked a pair of bun-hangin’ cut-offs and got thrown out of  Buffett concerts (oh, that’s right, I didn’t even bother with the cut-offs…).

That’s what I’m talmbout!

The 2000Teens, specifically 2016, meaning this summer: “Can’t Stop The Feeling”

What was all that dumb crap I was saying about a summer song being something that made me think about who I used to be?

Uh, yeah, forget that noise because this song makes me dance, baby! I don’t know if you brought sexy back, JT, but you brought something back. I can’t stop the feeling, either.

AGREED, JT!

Here’s to summer, kids.