Music
18
Songs That Scream ‘Summer’ Design by: Fatiha Nur Pratiwi Words by: Alanya Smith Let me set the scene; you’re walking out of your lecture to meet your mates in Bute Park, the sun is slowly setting and you can hear music buzzing from a nearby speaker. The glowing warmth of summer is teasing a season of festivals, BBQs and spontaneous pub trips in Cathays. The soundtrack for the occasion? Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Mr Bluesky’. Not only does the song combine catchy lyrics behind a funky bassline, but it’s also all about celebrating the returning serotonin of the radiating sunshine. The song can be played with your mates, your family, and it’s probably on your Dad’s Spotify playlist; but is there any better type of music? No other song can simultaneously get both your flatmates and your Nan hyped for the summer, making it the perfect backdrop for any sunny day. I’ll never forget hearing the song played on BBC Radio One for the first time this year, watching the sunset fill the room of my small flat and hit my mirror to decorate the wall with rainbow spectrums. It was as If the sun was saying that everything was going to be okay, stretching across to envelope me in a warm hug. When I changed the radio station the song was being played again, only to be playing on my flatmate’s speakers in the kitchen as well. The power that song has in brightening the gloomiest of days and bringing a smile to anyone’s face is so unique that it can’t really be replicated by anyone else. Afterall, there really is no better image of summer than a perfect blue sky. Words by: Esther Juniper Give A Little by Maggie Rogers I first heard this song in July of 2018. I had come out of an intense two years of A Levels and was faced for the first time in my life of the reality that I was not going back to school come September. I was confronted with possibilities and uncertainties about my future plans like never before. I came across the music video for this song first during a YouTube deep dive. Maggie is there singing in a skate park with a freckled face, shorts and white cowboy boots. Her friends sing and dance alongside female skateboarders in the sunshine. I watched it feeling nostalgic for teenage summers past and a level of scared and excited about what the coming months meant for me. Maggie’s voice triumphantly swells as she sings about a relationship that she wishes they could escape to a place where no one knows them. This struck a chord in me with her singing of the unknown, especially the outro where she sings that there’s a whole new world waiting for them. I had spent the past final months of college craving this summer to come quick, and when it did, it left me feeling more confused than ever. Maggie singing this made me feel secure in these emotions of uncertainty and gave me a sense of faith that it was all going to be okay. I spent the whole summer listening to the song on repeat, the sense of hope flooding me each time. I relisten to this song at the start of the warm summer weather and the wave of nostalgia hits
me. I reflect on the past summers gone and how different I am now than the 18 year old girl who first heard this. I ended up seeing Maggie with my best friend on a cold February night in Manchester, and yet when she began to sing this song, I felt like I was back in the sizzling heat of midJuly all over again. Words by: Eve Davies I’m sure you’ll know what I mean when I say that we all have a playlist purely for summer. Those tunes that we blast out on car rides, windows down and sunnies on, next to a campfire, or while sipping drinks in the garden with the barbecue fired up. For me, the song at the top of this playlist is Bryan Adams Summer of 69 – an absolute classic! Strangely, the lyrics make me feel nostalgic about the romanticised last summer of the sixties even though I never lived through it. However, Adams’ song takes me back to the summer of 2017 – the summer after completing my GCSEs. Days were spent in the sea; evenings were spent around a campfire. My friends and I would listen to Adams’ tune around a fire at the beach or in one of our gardens if we were so lucky to have a parent free house. We’d drink bottles of cheap Echo Falls wine and sing our hearts out. The song was sure to make an appearance towards the end of house parties when alcohol levels rose and levels of ‘coolness’ deteriorated. It was the first summer where we began to feel freedom and I think Adams’ lyrics reflect the sense of joy and liberty that is felt after finishing school. We had completed our first exam season and the choice was now ours what we would do with our Mondays to Friday, whether it be college, an apprenticeship, or full time work. We were young and restless and certainly needed to unwind. Although it seems like eons ago now, that summer did seem to last forever. Words by: Monica Garcia ‘Finders Keepers’ by Mabel ft. Kojo Funds was originally released in 2017. It came from her debut EP ‘Bedroom’ and also featured from her debut mixtape ‘Ivy to Roses’. Whilst I completely admire this song in its original format, ‘Finders Keepers – Remix’, which also features Burna Boy and Don-E, will always be a part of my core memory. Essentially, Mabel is singing about relationship with no real strings attached, where Kojo Funds, Burna Boy and Don-E respond to her desires with their own personal offers. From the beat of the music to the lyrics itself, it is something that has always screamed ‘summer’ to me and a song I will always revisit, without ever getting bored of it (no matter how many times I put it on loop). Personally, I associate this song with the desired summer break that every freshly-finished secondary school kid was looking forward to after A-Levels. I heard and played ‘Finders Keepers’ many times during my Summer 2019: my 18th birthday, after passing my driving test, my