Stories & Songs: Summer 2014

 Happy August, friends!

I had the thought to start a series of blog posts with "summer" music...a while back...in July...but then we went out of town for a couple weeks and I never did get around to it. But, seeing as to the fact that it's still very much summer here in South Mississippi, and it will be summer until around the end of September...I decided to go on ahead and put all these songs into one blog post!

Every summer I end up with a handful of songs that I listen to over and over, and when I listen to them later in the year, they remind me of that summer. There are songs I listened to 3 years ago that still remind me of the summer of 2011! The following songs are from the past couple of years, and are generally upbeat, happy tunes that remind me of my favorite season ever.

P.S....there are 15 songs in this post. You might wanna bookmark this post and come back to it so you can listen to all of them...because it's going to take a while. :)

Enjoy!

Keith Urban - Til Summer Comes Around

This will probably forever be my favorite summer song. It's a little on the sad side, yes, but for some reason I just really love it. It tells the story of an amusement park that closes down in the winter and a guy who stays "frozen in this town / til summer comes around", waiting for the girl he loves to come back. (Read the story behind the song here.) The music video is beautiful; it was filmed at the Santa Monica Pier in California and is the cause of my obsession with that place. We drove by the pier last summer and weren't able to see it...but it's on my bucket list!

Charlie Worsham - Mississippi in July

Charlie is a native of Grenada, Mississippi and won the Junior National Banjo Competition when he was 12. He's every bit as talented and hard-working as Hunter Hayes...just not as high-energy! When I first heard about Charlie last year, I picked this song as the first of his that I wanted to listen to. I was immediately impressed. Charlie's talent as a songwriter really shows through in this story set to music. (Listen to him tell the story behind the song here.)

Eric Church - Springsteen

I can't say I've ever intentionally listened to any of Bruce Springsteen's music (though I've probably heard it in a store or some place before), and the same could be said for many of the people listening to this song. It simply tells the story of a guy who wonders if the girl he once knew remembers him when she hears the music they listened to together. One of my favorite lyrics is "Funny how a melody sounds like a memory / like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night / Springsteen".

Ben Rector - Thank God for the Summertime

Ben is honestly one of the funniest people I follow on Twitter (next to Dave Barnes, of course, and if you read their conversations back and forth you'll be in stitches). Thus, many of his songs are fun to listen to! This lighthearted song captures the essence of summer perfectly: "And if it's late, we'll sleep in / cause every day is like the weekend / thank God for the months after May!"

Brad Paisley - Beat This Summer

My sister, Sarah, discovered this song over a year ago and it was one of a few dozen that we bought on iTunes before embarking on The Grand Trip Out West last year. "As long as I live, whatever I do / as great as it is, you know what's a bummer / I ain't ever gonna beat this summer with you."

We'll certainly never top the once-in-a-lifetime trip to California and back!

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors - Live Forever

I've blogged about this song before, but since the music video screams summer, here it is again. :)

Jason Gray - Good to Be Alive

I bought this song before my family took our camper up to the mountains in North Carolina 2 years ago and listened to it a lot back then. It always reminds me of sitting in the camper, listening to the afternoon rains fall and the mountain stream rush by. "I wanna live like there's no tomorrow / love like I'm on borrowed time / it's good to be alive".

Jillian Edwards - No Other Plans

Whenever I hear Jilly's sweet voice singing this song, I think of our trip to Texas 2 years ago. She has a talent for writing beautiful lyrics and melodies, that's for sure. "I've got no other plans that are written or stacked in my head / I've got thousands of things I could just leave unsaid / we can move along, a chorus needs a song..."

Keith Urban - Days Go By

Another one of my favorite Keith songs. "The days go by / I can feel 'em flyin' like a hand out the window as the cars go by / it's all we've been given, so you better start livin' / you better start livin' right now!"

Hunter Hayes - Better Than This

When Hunter released (ENCORE), the deluxe edition of his debut record, we were in the middle of California in June last year. This song is still one of my favorites. It tells the story of every singer, songwriter, or musician who dreams of "making it" one day in Nashville. "Could be a dead end road / I could be chasin' down a broken dream / but I don't even know / just where this road is gonna lead / it's a mystery / oh, ain't life a trip, no, it don't get better than this."

MercyMe - This Life

Another song I've blogged about before - "Hold your heads up high, this is the moment to rise / we were meant to shine, not just survive!"

Steven Curtis Chapman - Live Out Loud

Driving around in a VW van and handing everybody speakers? "Wake the neighbors, get the word out / come on, crank up the music / climb a mountain and shout / this is life we've been given, meant to be lived out / so la-la-la-la-live out loud!" Gotta love SCC.

Owl City - Fireflies

A couple years ago, during the trials for Olympic gymnastics, someone made a really sweet montage video for Nastia Liukin after she didn't qualify for the US team. They used this music in the video, and ever since then, it's reminded me of that summer. Besides, it's just a fun song to listen to!

Chris Rice - Life Means So Much

"Teach us to count the days / teach us to make the days count / lead us in the narrow way / somehow our souls forgot / life means so much."

A beautiful song from a gifted songwriter.

BYU Vocal Point - Good Time

Last but not least....my latest musical obsession: Vocal Point from BYU! If you've read this blog before, you know how much I love a capella music...and I was thrilled to discover just how unbelievably talented this group is. I'm going to put together a separate blog post with some of my favorite songs/performances of theirs soon, but for now, enjoy this cover of the Owl Ciy + Carly Rae Jepsen hit from the summer of 2012...complete with backflips mid-performance. :)

For the love of music,

Rebekah