I spent nearly every day of the past three months scouring Rhode Island’s radio stations for the elusive “Song of the Summer”, even as an endless parade of national media critics declared the search futile. “The Song of the Summer is Dead,” pronounced a WIRED headline in August; I recall hearing an NPR segment that bandied around a few candidates but was inconclusive. Yet I was convinced I could find it kicking around in the airwaves of the smallest state, perhaps buried somewhere under the avalanche of Top 40 repeats from previous years. There were many good songs from the past, sure, but I craved something new. I needed a hit that, years from now, would rocket me backwards in memory to this exact summer and its particular moods and nuances.
92PROFM served up shot after shot of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” trying to reheat a hit from last summer. I had a great time flooring my mom’s car down the highway to the gnashing guitars of 94HJY while the wind lashed hair in my eyes, but knew I wouldn’t find much new material amid the endless replays of Linkin Park and Nirvana. (Though it was new, once. “Who the hell is Nirvana?” my mom recalls asking her friends in the early ‘90s after seeing one night’s lineup at the now-defunct Club Babyhead). And nearly every station I tried played Hozier’s “Too Sweet” so many times it became saccharine.
Still I jabbed impatiently at the buttons on the car radio, cycling endlessly through the available FM stations: all the way from the violins of the classics station to the oldies hits on LITE 105. There was always a song that could placate me, but never anything life-changing. Were stale tunes now all I had after graduating and leaving my college radio station behind? I might have to spend the rest of my life listening to “Take on Me” and “Every Breath You Take” during my evening commute home. It was harrowing to think about.
Of course, there was a lively arts and culture scene that thrived this summer in Rhode Island outside of the confines of traditional radio stations. AS220’s Foo Fest returned after seven years of hibernation, once again inviting local artists to take the stage on Empire Street in Providence. Rhode Island Pride invited thousands to browse booths by the Providence River last June, also featuring its own lineup of musical performances. And at the Sims Ave Fest + Family Fringe market in July, you could buy anything from a new houseplant to customized secondhand clothing from local vendors.
With all this programming and all of this bustle, maybe I was getting greedy. Wasn’t it enough to have spent a lovely summer enjoying the Creative Capital, bumming around in artsy, air-conditioned hangouts like Riffraff Bookstore & Bar or LitsArts RI? Did I really need a perfect song to soundtrack it all? I kept rotating through the stations anyway, desperate to find a catchy chorus that would fill the lacuna in the summer’s soundtrack that preoccupied me endlessly.
Then, one day in mid-August, I found it. Waiting for a green light at an intersection next to a Dave’s Marketplace, I gave 92PROFM another shot and Sombr’s breakout hit “undressed” changed my life from the moment I heard the intro, with its melancholy bassline and wistful indie vibe. It isn’t a song to dance to, but the kind of coming-of-age ballad you’d want blasting as you stick your head out of the sunroof while coasting down I95, shouting the lyrics as you internally tie them to whatever personal saga of romantic angst you might be going through. The transcendent, haunting bridge is something I can imagine playing from a speaker at Narragansett Town Beach after the sun sets, when you can climb up into a vacant lifeguard tower and watch lights glint off the dark waves, alone with your thoughts as you survey the shifting moods of another summer night.
It’ll soon be too cold to recreate that specific experience, but there’s still a lot to look forward to this fall. I’m personally excited to stop by the Apple Festival in Johnston Memorial Park on September 20 & 21 to sample this year’s harvest. There’s also the Big E festival taking place in western Massachusetts September 12 – 28, if you want to keep the good vibes of the Washington County Fair going. Above all, I look forward to another fall of temperamental New England weather, where we’ll be pulling on sweaters in the morning only to skim them off in the afternoons. Here’s to a new season of soul-searching as the leaves begin to turn; I’ll still be fiddling with the radio dial, looking for the next song to ingrain in my memory as a permanent reminder of another time.