#27 Kate Bush - Sunset

(summer playlist, #4)

Album: Aerial (2005)

Lyrics excerpt:
Who knows who wrote that song of Summer

That blackbirds sing at dusk?
This is a song of colour
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust
Then climb into bed and turn to dust

Reasons to love this song:
Birdsong -- and the passage of one day -- are the subject of the second part of Bush's 2005 album Aerial, A Sky Of Honey. I chose to describe Sunset as a "summer song", but all the songs on A Sky Of Honey are actually summer songs, a celebration of life on a warm summer's day full of birdsong. If I say this album makes one happy to be alive it will sound horribly clichéd, but -- I'm sorry! -- it really does.

Link to Amazon preview:
An Endless Sky Of Honey
(The whole Sky Honey as one song)

YouTube link:
This video shows the album cover, which looks like a photo of islands in the sea, but is actually a waveform of a blackbird song.

#26 Cesária Évora - Sodade

(summer playlist, #3)

Album: Miss Perfumado (1992)

Lyrics excerpt:
Quem mostra' bo ess caminho longe?
Quem mostra' bo ess caminho longe?
Ess caminho pa São Tomé.
(Who showed you this long journey?
Who showed you this long journey?
The journey to São Tomé.)

Reasons to love this song:
"Sodade" in Cape Verdean Creole or "Saudade" in Portuguese is not a concept that can be translated in one word; I'm not a speaker of either, but I take it from good authority that "nostalgia" would be the closest one.
The song was written by Armando Zeferino Soares (also attributed to Amândio Cabral and Luís Morais), and describes the longing of Cape Verdean emigrants to São Tomé e Príncipe for their homeland.
For many listeners throughout the world, myself included, this song is tied to Cesária Évora, the singer who made the whole genre of morna internationally famous.

YouTube links:

A live performance by Cesária Évora in Paris in 2004:


Cesária Évora performing the song as a duet with Greek singer Eleftheria Arvanitaki -- I love how these two completely different voices sound together:

#25 Enya - Orinoco Flow

(summer playlist, #2)

Album: Watermark (1988)

Lyrics excerpt: 
From the North to the South, Ebudae into Khartoum,
From the deep sea of Clouds to the island of the moon,
Carry me on the waves to the lands I've never been,
Carry me on the waves to the lands I've never seen.

Reasons to love this song:
To some people, "Enya" has become not only the name of a single artist but also the name of a whole genre. Consequently, her name has also been used derisively by some people, as a synonym for bland elevator music. Well, I think these people are very silly and they don't know what they're talking about.
I still remember how I felt when I first heard this song in 1988 -- the video came up on MTV and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and heard, unlike anything I had heard before. The fact that her music has been emulated so much has never, for me, cheapened its appeal.
Once, in the nineties, I was traveling by ferry to a Mediterranean island and they were playing Watermark (the whole album) on the ship's stereo. Listening to this album and looking at the blue sea what an unforgettable, dreamlike experience.

Link to Amazon preview: 
 Orinoco Flow

YouTube link: 
The official video

#24 Emiliana Torrini - Unemployed In Summertime

(summer playlist, #1)

Album: Love In The Time Of Science (1999)

Lyrics excerpt:
Let's get drunk on saturday
Walk on Primrose Hill
Until we lose our way
We''ll get sunburned on the grass
Playing silly buggers 'till I make a pass
And you laugh at my face

Reasons to love this song:
Do you remember how, when you were a child, summers would last forever -- a seemingly endless time without any obligations? And then, as you grow older, time starts speeding up and summers get shorter and shorter and much less carefree. But in your early twenties there is still something left of that superpower children posess: slowing down time. This song captures the feeling of a long, carefree summer perfectly.

YouTube Link:
The official video:

A little postscriptum on Gypsy by Suzanne Vega

In this post I mentioned that Suzanne Vega's songs Gypsy and In Liverpool were based on the same person, her first love. I saw her in concert last week and she joked about this connection in a very charming way.

By some strange coincidence, just as she was about to play Gypsy, a man from the audience shouted: "In Liverpool!" She said "Thank you for the suggestion, but not right now," and went on to tell the story about the summer camp where she taught folk music and disco dancing, and the man who inspired Gypsy taught art. She didn't mention that this man was from Liverpool, but she suddenly asked in a dreamy voice: "Are you from Liverpool, sir? You who requested the song?" That would have been a lovely epilogue to this story, if this man from her past appeared at one of her concerts and requested a song about himself. It wasn't him, though! Or at least he didn't want to admit it...

She did play In Liverpool as an encore, and it was great.