“Steal My Sunshine” by Len, Friday, April 28, 2023 (repost)
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In the summer of '99, I was 12 years old. I spent the first half of the summer with my dad, a truck driver, as he crossed the U.S. delivering camper chassis and steel. A lot of kids would get bored looking at the Interstate for hours, but I always loved the journey. I loved maps and geography, and I was getting a firsthand experience of seeing what America looked like. Of course there were some boring parts. But what was best about the miles of cornfields was that the radio stations lasted quite a while-- a lot longer than they lasted in the foothills of North Carolina. With my dad, I got to experience new (old) music that my mom didn't approve of at the time. On the road I first listened to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Steve Miller Band, George Thorogood & the Destroyers, America, and so many others I could fill a whole blog post listing. We also listened to new music--Red Hot Chili Peppers, Goo Goo Dolls, and Sugar Ray.
IMPAIRED BY MY TRIBAL LUNAR SPEAK. One of the songs that was fun to hear on the radio stations across America was Len's summer hit "Steal My Sunshine." Surfer-dude meets baby doll singing, with strange lyrics, and happy, vibey instrumentation that sound like it would make a dog happy, this song became quite an infection radio gem. Listening to this song again, it reminds me of a time when the radio was fun. You didn't know what style of music you were going to hear next. The '90s were a time when alternative rock had a place on the Top 40 along with Hip Hop and bubblegum pop. In the late '90s rock started flirting more with Hip Hop and electronica, hence making unique tracks like this one. As the Canadian brother-sister fronted band failed to release a follow-up album to their 1999 hit You Can't Stop the Bum Rush, the band and their style remains a kind of time capsule of the summer before Y2K. It would have been interesting to see where they could have taken pop-rock, though, into the new millennium.
I KNOW IT'S UP FOR ME. Unfortunately, Len was unable to capture the hooks in their only hit twice. In fact, the band kind of rebelled against hooks in the rest of their music, much to their detriment. It's also worth it to check out why this was the only song we've ever heard from Len in the 8-minute documentary from True Rock N' Roll Stories(see below).If you just take the song on the first listen, along with the embarrassingly awesome music video, you might conclude that it's just a feel good song with some strange lyrics. However, on a deeper listen/read, you can see that the lyrics are about dealing with depression. The song talks about how other people can "steal [our] sunshine." It also talks about feeling down when others are enjoying themselves. This is another example of a music/lyric paradox used in songs like "Rose-Colored Boy" and to a lesser extent "Float On." "Steal My Sunshine," is a pretty good pre-curser to Emo pop. So what does this song mean for today? It's been a really rainy summer in Korea and extreme weather is taking over the globe. There's so much to bring us down. Life is looking different every summer. So that's kind of why we need to remember the good: those simple summer days when we didn't stress about heatwaves causing wildfires that might burn down your home. Please don't steal my sunshine--but also, don't turn it up to 11!
"I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I. Don't want a lot for Christmas." *struggles to change the radio dial amid gridlocked holiday traffic* "There's just one thing I need" *hurry up with my damn latte! I think I'm going to die. Why the hell is Starbucks playing Christmas music in mid-October?* "I don't care about the presents" *internal Elaine monologue 'I think I'm going to die in this department store. Ma'am, why must you spray the perfume so close to my face. I can't breathe! What if the earth begins to shake and we're stuck in here forever underneath mannequins and holiday shoppers and that damn Mariah Carey song stuck on repeat?'* "Underneath the Christmas tree" "No" *raising a strict finger to students who should be studying in the back* "Not before Thanksgiving." "I just want you for my own/ More than you could ever know." Every year, Christmas music gets earlier and earli...
In the summer of 2003, a rock station in LA started playing an inside cut from The Ataris ' So Long, Astoria , an album built on the late '70s and early '80s nostalgia. The band's first single, " In This Diary " reached number 11 on the Modern Rock chart. They were set to release the second single, " My Reply ," but the accidental hit " The Boys of Summer " overshadowed anything the band would produce in their twenty-five-year career. A cover of Don Henley 's 1984 number 1 hit, The Ataris' punk-rock reworking took the single to number 20 on the Hot 100 and number 2 on the Modern Rock chart, unable to beat Linkin Park 's " Faint ." Eighteen or thirty-seven summers later, "The Boys of Summer" remains a melancholy reminder that summer is over and that we all are getting older. I SAW A BLACK FLAG STICKER ON A CADILLAC. Written by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ' guitarist, Mike Campbell , ...
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