My Sunshine State Sojourn

The Long & Winding Road (Faroe Islands) | lennart

Vladivostok, Russia | Vlad Dyshlivenko

Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles except you can hear it coming from the speaker in someone’s truck in the distance from a park. It’s one of those warm summer days where you feel too heavy from simply being – perfect for sunbathing. Your sunhat is too big and flops over your face, and the grass underneath you itches, but you’re as happy as it can get.

American Pie by Don McLean except you’re sitting out on the rocking chair on the back porch of your family’s farmhouse, and you can hear your brother and his friends having a bit of a get-together in the barn and blasting it from their stereo. You’d join in, but you don’t know them well enough. You’re just fine out here, anyway.

requested by @cluttered-devotion

Work Song by Hozier except it’s being sung by what sounds like a few fellow laborers a ways up the coal mine that you’re working in. It’s dark and cold and grueling work, but whoever the singer is, he has a sweet story and a sweeter voice, and morale seems to pick up with each beat. 

By the end the entire mine has begun mining in harmony, but as you look for the source of the song… no one claims the credit. 

Georgia On My Mind by Ray Charles except while lying in the bed of your old pickup truck during a sweltering southern summer night, parked in an empty field and staring up at the stars, reminiscing on the past. The cicadas are the loudest this time of year, and one of the few things that can be heard above their drone is the song playing on the truck’s cassette player.

requested by @kwobii

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell except playing from your parents’ kitchen radio during a family get-together for the 4th of July. The windows are open to let the music out while everyone hangs out on the back porch with snacks and sparklers.

The Weight (concert version) by The Band except from the radio on your front porch as you sit outside to relax during a bout of nighttime summer rain.

requested by @learning-from-life

California Dreamin’ by The Mamas & The Papas except it’s playing from a box radio while you sit on the porch of a Yosemite Ranger Station in the very early morning. It’s summer. It’s 1979. And you love your job.

Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd except via the in-ceiling speakers of a truck-stop diner at 4am. The florescent lights buzz, the cracked vinyl seat creaks, the waitress pops her gum, and the highway traffic is just starting to pick up.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps by The Beatles except it’s 1968, and you’re listening to them on the radio while painting the walls. All windows are wide open because it’s summer, nevermind how dark out it’s getting. Meanwhile, the reporter on TV talks about the most recent events in Vietnam, and you can’t help but think what a doomed coincidence it happens to be.

requested by @burninangel 

Tiny Dancer by Elton John except your upstairs neighbor is playing it on their balcony, so you sit out on yours and listen to it while appreciating the rain and the LA traffic below.

requested by @neonsignsandlatenights

“Twist and Shout” but it’s playing from another room

( I’m sorry if this has been done before )

by request. you and the person you love most are on the shore of lake michigan. it is the summer, your skin is warm and freckled, your toes are covered in sand. you have no worries as the world begins to fade into golden hour. from a nearby cottage this song drifts over the chirping of the birds and the hum of the cicadas and the slow breaking of the waves. you have never known peace like this.

Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley except you’re sitting alone on a beach at sunset, with your radio next to you, watching the waves roll in. You would probably appear as though you’ve lost someone, but that couldn’t be further from the truth – she’s right here. It’s the sea herself that you’re in love with.

Have You Ever Seen the Rain by Creedence Clearwater Revival except you’re listening to it on a portable radio as you walk through the rain in an unfamiliar and quiet small town. The weather and loneliness have definitely got you down, but perhaps tomorrow things will be better.

now or never by elvis, except it’s being broadcasted on one of the wasteland’s last remaining stations. you turn your busted radio to it as you camp alone in the wilderness, watching the dying fire. as the song plays, a deep sorrow fills you, a longing for a place that no longer exists

Let It Be by The Beatles except you’re in your room on a late summer’s night, crying your eyes out over something dumb but knowing you need to get it out, and in the middle of it you put this song on your old record player. It’s deeply cathartic as you stare at the ceiling and listen to the breeze outside your window.

requested by @icedcarmelcoffee   

Hotel California by the Eagles except it’s playing through headphones that hand around your neck while you wait at an inner-city bus stop late at night in the rain. Throughout the song it seems that a pair of footsteps get louder and louder, and the dumpster in the alley next to you begins rumbling as though something is inside it, but something tells you not to turn around. Or else you might miss that bus.

Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog from the 1979 classic The Muppet Movie, except there’s a storm beating down and your cable has been knocked out, so you’ve brought out the VHS player.. You sit on the floor two feet away from the TV to watch it, curled up in a blanket, just like you used to do as a kid.

requested by @redhhazmatsuit