Thursday 15 June 2017

The Lost Summer

I ran across a video on Facebook called 25 Years of Summer Songs and all of them brought brief flashes of life back to me, except one. It was so strange to recognize each one, remember the song, reflect on my time during that year and then be confronted by a blank. It was jarring but I assumed it was probably an American list and that song wasn't popular here.

Then I thought about the year - 2004. I don't know if I would say it was the worst summer that I have had but it was a rough one: staying in Ottawa after my first year at Carleton in Engineering, to take summer courses. Working at a minimum wage job across the city that took over an hour and half on transit to get to. Dealing with a long distance serious relationship. Not many friends around because so many people return to their hometowns during that first university summer. However, that minimum wage job was at Extreme Pita, so that is full-time radio listening and I am surprised that the song didn't stick in my mind from that.

The song, Burn by Usher, seems to be pretty universally agreed to be the main song for the summer of 2004. While I recognize other songs from that same album, that one just isn't in my memory. I don't totally agree with all the picks each year, in 2001 I can remember Drops of Jupiter being a major summer song, but that might have just been personal experience. I might not be big on music but songs are still often a serious memory link.

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