By Lisabet Sarai
I never will forget those nights;
I wonder if it was a dream.
Remember how you made me crazy -
Remember how I made you scream.
~ Don Henley, “The Boys of Summer”
As soon as I saw Kristina's topic for
the week, this song began playing in my mind. I hadn't listened to it
in a while, but I discovered that my reaction hadn't changed. “The
Boys of Summer” still brings tears to my eyes and sends chills up
my spine.
If you're not familiar with the song,
go here:
This isn't a particularly good video,
but the lyrics will paint their own pictures for you. Or at least,
they do for me.
Why does this bittersweet song touch me
so deeply? One reason is the fact that it so perfectly captures the
blind intensity of teenage passion – the way sex and love get
totally confused when you're burning up with desire. When you're
young, the nights are magic and they last forever. Everything kiss,
every touch, is new and overwhelming. I don't know about you, but I
find this song incredibly erotic, perhaps because it reminds me of my
own early loves, swept away by the tides of time.
In fact “The Boys of Summer” isn't
really a summer song at all:
Nobody on the road;
Nobody on the beach.
I can feel it in the air,
The summer's out of reach...
But it celebrates the glories of
summer, bare limbs, bronzed bodies, and heat that rivals the sun. The
song pulls you back to the season when the beach was crowded and
girls drove around in convertibles, when rock and roll and scent of
sun tan oil filled the air. In the brilliant light of summer lust,
forever seems possible, even likely.
The song tells a story, too, one that I
might try to express in my own medium some day, if I get the chance.
Just three verses, and yet I know the characters: the fickle,
flirtatious girl “smiling at everyone”, the brash, naïve young
man, hurt yet boasting “I'm gonna show you what I'm made of”.
And then the third verse, surely the voice of greater wisdom and
maturity, “those days are gone forever; I should just let them
go.”
But he can't, and neither can I. The
memories tempt me back, to relive the thrill and the pain of first
love or first lust – if there's a difference.
While looking for a recording to
include in this post, I noticed that “The Boys of Summer” was
released in 1984 – nearly three decades ago. And even then, I was
wistfully recalling earlier summers. It's sobering to realize how
long ago it was that I first experienced “those nights” of which
this song reminds me. I guess I never will forget them. And
honestly, I don't want to.
