Songs for Long Days

The Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year, yet, I find the summer days on the latter half of the Solstice’s fulcrum to feel like daily eternities. For many, the excitement of coming adventures, sun-filled days, and cool-but-not-crisp nights are replaced with a particular urgency to fill the calendar with summer’s “lasts.” The last beach trip, the last sweltering cookout, the last “summer Friday," and the last few days of having to keep the kids entertained without the reliable aid of the school day all stride in a headlong sprint toward a penciled-in finish line somewhere between August 15th and Labor Day. It’s a tertiary season where the promises of summer are behind us, and the promises of fall are obscured by the late-afternoon heat radiating from the asphalt.

This month's playlist aims to salve this less-acknowledged seasonal malaise. Heavy reverb, chunky, hollow guitars, distant twinkling, and lyrics in synchronous conversation with melodies conjure images of unhurried play and reveling in a day that begins and ends outside. You know that feeling of hugging a friend, a lover, or perhaps a crush at a late afternoon picnic? The moment your bare shoulders meet or cheeks brush in an embrace, and you feel the cooling, damp working of their skin against yours? Yeah, this is that.

Like a canvas painted with a gentle evening breeze, Songs for Long Days is meant to find you in comfort, peace, and safety—on a porch or in a park on those hot and drawn-out days we might lament in the moment, but always long for once they've passed.