The Author with his brother, sister and a Ford Gran Torino Wagon, sometime around Summer '73
It is the 25th 35th anniversary of the Summer of 1973. I was 10-years old during that particular summer.
I have a 10-year old of my own today. He’s sometimes sweet, often petulant, always inquisitive. In short, he’s a lot like his father.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that summer over the past several months, how much the music will always be a soundtrack to that time.
I was going to write a week long series of posts about my summer as a 10-year old, riding our banana-seated bikes around the lake where we camped (predecessors to the mountain bikers of today), catching crayfish in the creek, fishing for blue gills in the lake, burning piles of wood in the fireplace (because we could), singeing marshmallows and eyebrows over the campfire and listening to the jukebox in the campground rec room. Especially the jukebox in the rec room, where we dropped quarters on the pool table and the pinball machine in a freshly built space that smelled forever like concrete and sawdust.
But, I’m off on a business trip tomorrow (a few hours after school starts) and, like the summer of 1973, the opportunity for a long list of reminisces has largely passed.
I did get as far as making a CD of these songs for car listening. Grandmom immediately identified them as “songs from the lake” and my kids immediately wanted to hear Smoke On The Water several hundred times (which they promptly renamed Barbeque On The River).
In a way, I managed to pull my summer and his summer as 10-year olds together. Briefly, which is always the way life is…
And say goodbye to summer…one more time.
The Carpenters – Yesterday Once More
Not written by Paul Williams, but should’ve been.
Seals And Crofts – Diamond Girl
Great piano part.
McCartney And Wings – Live And Let Die
Maureen McGovern – The Morning After
Shelly Winters. Need I say more?
Mac Davis Clint Holmes – Playground In My Mind
Jim Croce – Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
Helen Reddy – Delta Dawn
Dr. John – Right Place, Wrong Time
Spent the entire summer of 1983 learning these lyrics.
Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water
BW Stevenson – My Maria
Like Croce, we wonder what would have been if he’d stuck around.
Paul Simon – Loves Me Like A Rock
Bette Midler – Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Doobie Brothers – Long Train Runnin’
I had yet to have my first schoolboy crush (Stephanie Turk, 7th grade math class) but I got it.
Indeed…
Oh man, I love nostalgia posts. I was 7 in 1973, and I think the sun was shining everyday, except on days when there was snow. I don’t remember a rainy day.
It’s a good question what will be the soundtrack of our childrens’ childhood. I don’t want to sound like a middle-aged man who isn’t down with the kids (hell, I feed my nephews brand-new music which they love; just nothing from the charts), but there is little memorable on the radio now. It’s all derivative. And the increasing segmentation into rigid genres and access to a wide choice on the Internet also means less shared experience. And nostalgia just isn’t the same if you can’t share it with your ageing peers.
Great post, MJ. And great accompanying playlist. Really sharp encodings, too. Goddamn! Most of these sound better than those of mine which correspond.
I put these all on when I was getting my son ready for school this morning; he’s 9 1/2, so pretty close age-wise to your boy.
“…where we dropped quarters on the pool table and the pinball machine in a freshly built space that smelled forever like concrete and sawdust.”
Nice!
By the way, love the new header image!
i was born in 1973 – but unfortunately i’m not 25 but 35. or is this a re-post of something that you wrote 10 years ago?
anyway: nice music
You’ve nailed it. I was 13 that summer, with the radio constantly on.
“Uneasy Rider” makes me wonder what Charlie Daniels could have been.
Like you a, 10 yrs old in ’73 … these titles bring back a lot of memorys … these songs were on the CHUM AM playlist in ’73, I remember listening to them on a tiny transistor radio at the cottage, while sitting or play at the dock. Would really like to hear them again, but your links are broken
Hope the business trip went well.
Appreciate all the comments…indeed, it was 35 years ago (and my math stands corrected). And, as far as I can tell, all the links are working…anyone else having troubles? I’ve taken to making CD’s for the kids that mix old and new (Stir It Up by Johnny Nash followed by St. Andrews by Bedouin Soundclash, for example). They spend a lot of time commuting to school and soccer games…getting a real education on the way!
Boy, I was 13 at that tim. My kids are 19 and 15 y.o now. Let me tell you that (believe or not)both are Beatles freaks. Most of their friends think that songs from the 70′s and 80′s are really music and my mixes are their object of desire. So cheers up for the new generation !
BTW, the links are really not working.
Keep on,
Dr.DJ
Hi I happened upon your site by chance…awesome!
This music played around our house always by parents and my older sister…happy music…life seemed simplier
Thanks to you I just did some music ordering off of Amazon
=)
Thanks to all for the comments…mostly to Hannah for letting me know I’ve inspired a purchase!
Namaste,
Music Junkie at Fusion 45
Wasn’t Playground In My Mind by Clint Holmes.Just curious.Great blog!
J’ever write something, knowing that it’s not right, but you keep going anyway? A sort of cranial vapor lock? That’s the case here: I know Clint Holmes did ‘Playground’ as well as I know the Beatles did ‘Sunshine of Your Love’.
I stand corrected.
Thanks for visiting!
Namaste,
Music Junkie at Fusion 45