Around eight years ago I was dating this girl, she is happily married now and I haven't spoken to her in seven years, but in 2005 I was dating this girl and for around eight months it was the happiest time of my life. Then it headed South in 3/4 time, but I was happy and I knew I was happy.
That's a real gift and I know many people who simply don't have it -who don't realize they are happy when they are are happy. And more. Even as I was happy I was missing the moments as they flew past. I knew in my bones it couldn't last and so I missed it as it happened. And Brad Paisley's latest song is the only one I've ever heard that actually deals with instant nostalgia. The lyrics are a little clumsy, a little too prosaic, "As great as it is, you know what's a bummer? I'm never going to beat this summer" is how he phrases it in the chorus.
But the verses serve it to a better degree, "the sand on the beach is an hour glass" is a lovely thought and from the radio dial being fiddled with at the beginning to the extended guitar solo to lead you out, it is the "song in a seashell" he is singing about.
The song pours it on, doctored acoustic guitars build to an electric chorus and catchy Bon Jovi gone pop oooh ooohs take you to the magical bridge, which yearns for what it has, this is a little special. It's as if the quietness of joy builds to a lifetime of loss. Manufactured? Yes. But manufactured to an end. The song is simple yet it twists, it has the ache of something passed but also a youthful zest and a glimpse of a song being sung in the rearview mirror (the radio suggests the past). It's like a prequel to the Drifters "I've Got Sand In My Shoes".
"Sand In My Shoes" has the summer gone, "the heatwave and the crowds are all old news" Ben E. King sings in answer to their own "Under The Boardwalk" and yearns eternally for August in late September and meanwhile Brad is taking you even further into future, he takes you past September and 50 summers later.
They are both teenagers songs. Grown ups lose eternal summers for eternal jobs. I've worked every summer since 1979 so for me a sunny never ending summer is a dream, it doesn't happen any more. But like the Drifters I still have some sand in my shoe and like Paisley I never missed the moments as they happened.
Beat This Summer – A
Sand In My Shoes – A+