Tunes for suntanning

Best summer songs ever, volume one

By Guruchathram Ledchumanan

Sonic Temple

It's that time of the year again, kids. A time of sharing and caring. A time when (most) textbooks and classrooms are closed and the BBQ grill is fired up. It's a time for remembering what it was like to be a kid again with nothing to do but anything you wanted to do. May this list serve you well on road trips, camping trips, and regrettable summer romances.

Alice Cooper “School's Out” School's Out (1972)

Alice Cooper invented shock rock when he bit the head off a live chicken at the 1969 Toronto Rock 'N Roll Revival show held at the University of Toronto's Varsity Stadium. Also on the bill were John Lennon, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and The Doors. However, the biggest news from the event was Cooper's snack attack.

Before he goes to bed every night, Marilyn Manson gets on his knees and prays to the good Lord to make himself half as decent as Alice Cooper. Failing that, he steals Cooper's makeup kit instead. Cooper wrote this song to answer the eternal question, what are the greatest three minutes of your life? Listen to this on the last day of school to find out.

Jay-Z “Big Pimpin'” The Life and Times of S. Carter (1999)

Get a wife beater, grab some video hos, and get yo ass to a boat, playa! Every man's ideal summer vacation set to music. Jay-Z samples “Khosara” by the the late Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafiz. It was subject to a lawsuit in 2007 when “Khosara” copyright owner Osama Admed Fahmy sued Jay-Z's producer Timbaland for using his music without permission. However, since the sample used on the track was a re-recording and not technically a sample, Timb and Jigga managed to escape with their suits intact. Now that's big pimpin' right there. Like Jay-Z himself says on the track, “You know I thug 'em, fuck 'em, love 'em, leave 'em, 'cause I don't fucking need 'em.”

Queens of the Stone Age “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” Rated R (2002)

Here is a moment as arresting as the opening riff and drum kick of Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or Tom Morrello's funk in Rage Against The Machine's “Killing In The Name”. It was written during lead singer Josh Homme's three-day millennium bender. Homme referred to it as “the knife at the neck of stoner rock.”

The lyrics sounds like a page from Hunter S. Thompson's “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” It's a list of drugs, but the band's stance on it is ambiguous. Wal-Mart refused to sell the album due to the song's drug references and wanted a warning label placed on the cover. Homme retorted by saying that the album title was already a warning. Judas Priest's lead shrieker Rob Halford is featured on back-up vocals in the last line of the chorus where he reads out the rock 'n' roll cocktail of “nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol, co-co-co-cocaine.”

Don Henly “The Boys of Summer” Building the Perfect Beast (1984)

Not content with being only the drummer and singer of the Eagles, (probably the greatest male vocal harmony group since The Temptations,) Don Henly wrote the lyrics for his solo break from the legendary country rock band. The music was composed by Tom Petty's guitarist Mike Campbell. It's the darkest song on this list and has all the summer fun of a daytime funeral. It's a ballad of loss that comes to terms with the uncomfortable fact that time marches on despite your need to live in a seemingly better past. Play this when summer romances turn sour and love is destroyed by the first morning light of reality. “I thought I knew what love was, what did I know?”

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