Category Archives: Music

Two Augusts ago
I told the truth, oh, but you didn’t like it, you went home
You’re in your Benz, I’m by the gate
Now you go alone
Charm all the people you train for, you mean well but aim low
And I’ll make it known like I’m getting paid

That’s just the way life goes
I like to slam doors closed
Trust me, I know it’s always about me
I love you, I’m sorry

The blush is mostly off this summer’s coquette rose, but we’ll always have the music. And as long as we can hear it, the beat will go on. And as long as the beat goes on, the heart has the capability of feeling full. A coquette summer leads with longing and ends with something else… this post is leading us to that something else. This post leads to what might be next. My niece Emi tells me this next song is coquette. I listened to it – well, the quick snippets of it that she had the patience to play. I sent her a text asking her to send me more coquette song ideas. She never replied. Silence and a song.

Two summers from now
We’ll have been talking, but not all that often, we’re cool now
I’ll be on a boat, you’re on a plane
Going somewhere sane
And I’ll have a drink
Wistfully lean out my window and watch the sun set on the lake
It might not feel real, but it’s okay, mh

‘Cause that’s just the way life goes
I push my luck, it shows
Thankful you don’t send someone to kill me
I love you, I’m sorry

Summer sunsetz… August on the cusp of waning. This strange season of healing and hope, where deluge has followed dream, leaves me with an empty and dull ache. A classic coquette conundrum: balm of beauty and hurt of heart. There is no extricating one from the other. Summer winds around itself like some self-defeating vine, twirling tendrils and unfurling flowers that have only ever appeared in fantasies and fables. We weave our stories with summer’s light, retelling tales and rebuilding the past. 

You were the best but you were the worst
As sick as it sounds, I loved you first
I was a dick, it is what it is
A habit to kick, the age-old curse
I tend to laugh whenever I’m sad
Stare at the crash, it actually works
Making amends, this shit never ends
I’m wrong again, wrong again

An August sunset is a story in and of itself, but you have to learn how to listen, and you have to know how to wait. Entire books can be written in the time the sun takes to put itself in hiding for the night, but that’s a secret I’ve only glimpsed in bits and pieces – the whole trick remains elusive and out of reach for my greedy hands. I want it too much; my thirst is too desperate ~ another aspect of the coquette. 

The way life goes
Joyriding down our road
Lay on the horn to prove that it haunts me
I love you, I’m sorry
The way life goes (you were the best but you were the worst)
(As sick as it sounds, I loved you first)
I wanna speak in code (I was a dick, it is what it is)
(A habit to kick, the age-old curse)
Hope that I don’t, won’t make it about me (I tend to laugh whenever I’m sad)
(Stare at the crash, it actually works)
I love you, I’m sorry

The sunset behind us, we drive into the deepening night of a darkening summer. The fade to black is beautiful at this time of the year. 

We have arrived in August, and our coquette summer continues with its underlying melancholy vibes. Strange rains and tumultuous storms lend their atmospheric moodiness to a week of emotional tumult. August and its goldenrod hint at changes in the air. In the subtlest of shifts, the sun slants differently now. To buoy the spirits and remind that it’s still very much summer, with almost two months still to come, I present this coquette-lite ditty.

When the day that lies ahead of me
Seemed impossible to face
Ooh, when someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way

Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Oh, just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be

A lovely day

Much of the coquette-themed music we’ve heard this summer has been culled from the knowledge and taste of my niece Emi Lu. This mix veers slightly away from that true coquette aesthetic and into my own zany interpretation of coquette madness, hence its common title of ‘Coquette-Me-Not’. Here are songs that branch off from that pure theme into something hopefully just as fabulous, with a little harder beat to help get you onto your feet. So much of a coquette lifestyle is about lounging and longing – this one is about silliness and frivolity and dancing your ass off when things get vulgar… 

While things get hot on the dance floor with cuts such as ‘Murder on the Dancefloor‘ and ‘Padam Padam’, there is a delicious cool down in a trio of coquette insta-classics: ‘Cherry’, ‘Rain’ and ‘Hot’. 

{See also Coquette Summer: Playlist the 1st and Coquette Summer: Playlist the 2nd (Coquettish).}

I Loved Him/Oliver Quick! – Anthony Willis

Coquette

Cherry Blossom – Lana Del Rey

Theme from ‘Bewitched’

Melting – Kali Uchis

Joli Garcon – Pink Martini

Murder on the Dancefloor (Orchestral Version) – Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Norman Fucking Rockwell – Lana Del Rey

True Blue – Francesco Digilio

Tejano Blue – Cigarettes After Sex

Over the Moon – The Marias 

Stars Are Blind – Paris Hilton 

Espresso – Sabrina Carpenter

Fast Slow Disco – St. Vincent

Do It To The Music – Raw Silk

Murder on the Dancefloor (Extended Mix) – Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Padam Padam – Kylie Minogue

Joyride – Kesha

Vulgar – Sam Smith & Madonna

Cherry – Lana Del Rey

Rain – Madonna

Hot – Cigarettes After Sex

The Boys of Summer – Sunway

Pink Summer – Hilding Svenssons

And the summer begins with the taste of your lips
While it’s getting hot inside you
Think you’d burn through your dress if you kiss me again
And it’s getting hot inside…

July… one of those months you don’t want to end, no matter how stifling and hot it might get. July is summer at its zenith. It’s vacations and pools and blurry asphalt, it’s bike rides and tomatoes and childhood nostalgia, it’s lilies and daisies and hydrangeas. It’s also a moment to stop and take a breather. It gets hot out there. Sit beside me in the shade and listen to this song.

Where are we in this summer? I’m probably not the best person to ask. We are very near the one-year anniversary of my Dad’s death, and my grieving has come back, if it ever really went away. It’s too soon to gauge whether summer has been irreparably wounded by the events of last year, but how could it ever be the same again? I wouldn’t want to erase all that has happened – if you take away all the sadness you take away all the love. 

Is it all in my head? ‘Cause I keep getting scared
That I’ll always be lost forever
But I don’t give a shit if I’m too delicate
When you hold me, it’s always better

Still, summer burns and summer heals. Grieving in the barren stark dimness of winter night have proven unbearable. This might be the best and most forgiving time to experience loss. The outside world, with its beauty and the floral balms in bloom, offers comfort, the way beauty always eases our time on earth. A song like this lends its own bit of help in assuaging melancholy. Happiness, ever elusive and always out of reach, is summer’s vicious promise every year. 

Now your lips start to taste of pink lemonade
As I jump off the roof into your pool
Laugh and run from the heat ’cause it’s burning your feet
And it’s getting hot inside

Is it all in my head? ‘Cause I keep getting scared
That I’ll always be lost forever
But I don’t give a shit if I’m too delicate
When you hold me, it’s always better

There was a time when I wanted to be just one of the boys of summer, whatever that might mean, and it’s meant something different with each passing year. I am very clearly no longer a boy, and haven’t been for quite some time. My childhood withered decades ago, probably much earlier than my physical appearance would have anyone guess. I’ve felt like a very old soul since I first became aware of myself. It’s part of why childhood proved so seemingly difficult for me: relating to other kids was never easy, because I never truly felt like a kid. I never had that carefree confidence because I always knew, on some level, how very different I was from the other kids. That makes you grow up quickly. That makes you old even when you’re not. 

I can see you
Your brown skin shining in the sun
I see you walking real slow and
Smiling at everyone
I can tell you, my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone

These days I feel a little more tired and weary than usual, a state in which I’ve uncomfortably become more comfortable, for worse and far from better. I see it in this picture, and more keenly I feel it within my own body and mind. Approaching the age of 49, I don’t mind growing older – it feels like I’m coming more and more into my own, that this long journey is just starting to make a little sense – but it still takes its toll. There are days when it’s exhausting, when the business of being who the world thinks I am – the person I’ve made the world think I am – feels overwhelming, and I just don’t want to do it. 

Then I think back to when I was a boy. If I could do it then – unprotected, untried, unknown to my own self – how could I not do it now? Or at the very least, how could I not try?

A little voice inside my head said
“Don’t look back, you can never look back”
I thought I knew what love was, what did I know?
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go but…

The battle for the sky, and so many other things, is often fought by blue and pink. Lately my money’s been on the pink – it’s a coquette summer after all. Here we have a bit of a draw – in song and appearance – and the wistful sense of longing inherent in such a post speaks directly to our coquette theme. True blue, baby, I love you. 

At the moment we are hurtling toward another full moon – and many of us are most definitely feeling it. Lunacy is real y’all. Luna is the moon, and you are all lunatics. It’s ok. So am I. Let’s have our moon madness, harnessing its often-frantic energy and driving it like one of those sand worms in a damn ‘Dune’ movie. 

Oh dear. This was supposed to be a calming and peaceful post. But when the skies are unsettled, pretty though they may be, the heart and head feel unsettled too. 

Let us return to the sweetness of this song then, originally made famous by Madonna – which reminds me we are long overdue for the next Madonna Timeline installment. Any requests? Just kidding, I don’t take requests for that, other than what the random shuffle feature deigns to land on next. Does this sound as crazy as I think it does? Don’t tell me. I already know.

So if you should ever doubt, wonder what love is all about, just think back and remember dear, those words whispered in your ear…

The coquette aesthetic wilts in the high heat we’ve had of late, but also lends its own cooling power to the proceedings. The underlying melancholy of this coquette summer cuts through the hot and humid stretches, dousing the fire with tears of healing and compassion – the tears of having to grow up, even at the ripe age of almost-49. One more year to fifty. 

I’ll be your baby
There’s nothing better I’d rather do
I’m lost completely
I might as well be over the moon

I’d like it if you tried
Before you change my mind
Are you gonna be here with me
I know you better

The perfume of the pink lily is potent – exceedingly floral and cloying in its sweet richness. It’s a lot to take, especially on the hotter days. But that’s the sort of whoozy, dizzying, decadent indulgence that personifies the coquette notion – something sweet and nostalgic, that is somehow too much and never enough at the same time. The coquette lifestyle is pretty but too often unsatisfying – tantalizingly out of reach – an obsessive state of longing and unfulfilled promise.

This momentary ride
This fire by my side
Are you gonna be here with me
You know that

I’ll be your baby
There’s nothing better I’d rather do
I’m lost completely
I might as well be over the moon

Pink moods, mirrored and mimicked by lilies and clouds at sunset, run deceptively deep. At first sight and sensation, they may feel frivolous and foolish, something to be dismissed or denied – the very impetus of what drives the melancholy of a coquette moment – but how surprisingly resonant they remain, outlasting the ephemeral and fleeting nature we think we know.

The pink lilies glow as the night arrives, but only if the moon is present, which brings out the lighter shading of their throats. On warmer nights, the perfume becomes deliriously potent, an intoxicating lure for all creatures seeking sweetness and beauty. It is the sigh of a summer evening. 

You call me up at night
Imaginary lines
Are you gonna go back to sleep
I know you better
Than you know yourself
I’m only saying play your hand with someone else (someone else)
Don’t tell me how to be your baby
There’s nothing better I’d rather do
I’m lost completely
I might as well be over the moon
I might as well be over the moon

This post is much too moody for daylight hours, so I’ve hidden it in minutes leaving up to the bewitching hour of midnight. A half-moon dangled between the pine boughs, and some star or planet was right beside it, keeping it company on a calm sky of the deepest ocean blue. A song then, for a day and evening that has been bewitching, bothersome, and bafflingly bewildering – a song that has been posted here before in Ella Fitzgerald’s brilliant rendering of it from sunnier days that seem to have taken place ages ago…

It was a bothersome day because of the bugs – even with a heavy spritzing of insect repellent, and a preliminary yard fogging, they would not leave me alone as I attempted to clear up our side yard. Upwards of ten years have passed since I last tackled that section of our property, and that’s much too long to let anything go. The vines have soared fifty feet into the pine and oak trees – the bane of  bittersweet and Virginia creeper – both taken a hold of the entire area. Sprouts of little shrubs have become trees, and pulling them up by the roots took its toll on my neck last week, and my back today – another bothersome aspect of the day. I know enough not to pull too hard, I really do, and still I find myself thinking I can do one more, that my back is the same supple thing it was in my 20’s, and it’s simply not. 

The bothersome grows into the bewildering, as the news reports of an assassination attempt on a possible dictator come onto the television, as if the news couldn’t get any more depressing and worrisome. That one evil, corrupt, indicted felon can so destroy a country with half the country’s blessing is still a bewildering mystery to me. 

And so I do my best to discover the bewitching that begins and ends the song, but I am at a loss. This summer only continues where last summer left off – no resolution, no happy ending, only more loose ends, more questions, more worries and sadness and wonder. 

Now I will move into a midnight meditation, to shake off the mucky emotions of the day and hopefully find a place of peace for a calm stretch of slumber. 

First things first: there is no ‘x’ in ‘espresso’. Kudos for getting that right in this song.

Second things second: not every song that hits big is a summer jam.

Third things third: this is a definite summer jam. Silly, trifling, bordering on ridiculous, with a frivolous, semi-cheeky video to match, Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’ is the sort of softly-percolating shuffler that crests easily through the sunny season, when pool, beach, sun, and surf are the only orders of the day. We so badly need that sort of escapism right now, I got out of my pajamas and sat for a couple of nonsensical espresso-themed shots while this song cast its languid spell over a hot and humid day.

I can’t relate to desperation
My ‘give a fucks’ are on vacation
And I got this one boy
And he won’t stop calling
When they act this way
I know I got ’em

Too bad your ex don’t do it for ya
Walked in and dream came trued it for ya
Soft skin and I perfumed it for ya
I know I Mountain Dew it for ya
That morning coffee, brewed it for ya
One touch and I brand newed it for ya

For those who care to know, size does matter… so keep your eye on the cup. (And relax, this isn’t a real espresso – nobody wants me on caffeine. That’s how foolish this whole thing truly is.)

Now he’s thinkin’ ’bout me every night, oh
Is it that sweet? I guess so
Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know
That’s that me, espresso
Move it up, down, left, right, oh
Switch it up like Nintendo
Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know
That’s that me, espresso

Oh look, I’m an actor, pretending this cup of Caffein-Free Diet Coke is a super-hot Espresso. Witness the range. Marvel at the wonder. Sip carefully at this [ding-ding] steam heat.

Lost in the heat and accompanying haze of high summer, along with some ruminative moments of melancholy, I’ve lost a bit of the way on this coquette summer journey. When the heat and humidity rise to such levels, it’s all I can do to get through the day. Committing to the bare minimum of a summer existence is sometimes the only way to guide one’s ship through questionable waters, no matter how temptingly warm they may seem. It requires careful calibration and delicate maneuvering. Especially when the summer has turned to pink…

You are my church, you are my place of worship
I heard you’re the plug, can I be the circuit?
When I got court, I hope that you’re the verdict
When you’re around, my insides turn inverted
My blood starts to rush when I see your doorman
I know you’re nearby and I know your purpose
Take one look at you, you’re heaven’s incarnate
What is this spell, baby? Please show some mercy

Kali Uchis sings a song about ‘Melting‘, and the pink and wet blooms seen here on the morning after a night of rain embody the sentiment perfectly. Are these blossoms melting or crying? Is their life elixir being extracted from them, or are they dripping out their dew willingly in some act of giving, some force of universal love? 

Melting like an ice cream when you smile
Melting, you’re a daydream, stay a while

Summer pink bleeds into sunlight. Forces of life, of blood so faint it looks pink, pulses through the sunny morning. Through closed eyelids, the sun appears pinkish, reddish… is that blood we are seeing, or not seeing, when our eyes are shut to the sun? Are we melting too, like the flowers?

I pray that I can learn to be funny
I’m watching every stand-up comedy
Just hoping that it’ll rub off on me
So you’ll smile at everything I say
You got some soft lips and some pearly whites (pearly whites)
I wanna touch them in the dead of night (dead of night)
Your smile ignites just like a candlelight (candlelight)
Then somehow, I know everything’s alright

Some blossoms bow, some blossoms bend, some blossoms reach to kiss the blossom above them. In all shades of pink, summer bleeds out a little each day, putting forth bits of beauty, spending them in measured doses. As much as we may want summer to be endless, its reservoir eventually runs dry, waiting to be filled by the rains of fall and the snows of winter. That underlying element of a finite limit, in something as wild and unwieldy as a coquette summer, is as bothersome as it is reassuring. Summer pushes and summer pulls.

Melting like an ice cream when you smile
Melting, you’re a daydream, stay a while

This seems as good a time as any to remind anyone who needs to hear it (and I’m speaking mostly to myself, as is my habit these days) to slow down, read the signs, and stop right now. We are already in July and early summer won’t last much longer. Who better to teach such a lesson than the Spice Girls?

This is one proper bop, if we can keep the good meaning of ‘bop’ going for just a little bit longer, like the summer. (Leave it to middle schoolers to ruin a term just as us adults get cozy and comfy using it.) 

It’s Friday, and we’ve arrived – at the weekend, at the height of summer, at all the things we’ve been waiting for all these days. Stop right now and experience the moment.

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered… check, check, and double-check. History, even the worst of it, repeats itself when we should have learned better. Debriefed in the literal sense of losing my briefs, I feel raw and naked on this day of independence. Such exposure is not new to this blog, but the fatalism and sense of dread and defeat in the air is something different. 

Shall we have some music then? Something to mirror the summer vibes of a poolside escape, or a bit of night-swimming before the crickets begin their late summer song. 

Let’s have decadence in the face of all this depravity – the only way to get through this summer is to shut off the news and focus on what is real, what is here, what is actually happening. The strength of the sunlight and the way it wavers on the water… the sweet scent of privet in bloom… the hunger and exhaustion that happily overcomes the body after a day of swimming… 

A recent dinner with Suzie at Athos provided the opportunity to try this mocktail twist on their ‘Lavender Daisy’ drink – hats off to a restaurant that offers every single one of its cocktails in mocktail form. The presentation is coquettish, and I would love for violets to play a part in all my drinks from this point forward. That’s the sort of magic one can wish for in a coquette summer. Let’s also have a song – one for the moon…

Days seem sometimes as if they’ll never end
Sun digs its heels to taunt you
But after sunlit days, one thing stays the same
Rises the moon

Days fade into a watercolour blur
Memories swim and haunt you
But look into the lake, shimmering like smoke
Rises the moon

Oh-oh, close your weary eyes
I promise you that soon the autumn comes
To darken fading summer skies
Breathe, breathe, breathe

Days pull you down just like a sinking ship
Floating is getting harder
But tread the water, child, and know that meanwhile
Rises the moon

And so I swim, in the pool that once brought us such joy, attempting to set the trappings of happiness in physical form, rekindling the precise atmosphere and setting where happiness once resided, leading with action in the motion, the way some say to smile when you want to feel better, tricking the body into thinking it’s in a space and place of happiness. And then I remember – a coquette summer isn’t necessarily meant to be one of happiness, and maybe this summer isn’t meant to have much of solace in it anyway. We shall dream in the day and swim in the night, drink in the stars and sip on the moon, and our coquette summer will be rounded in a sleep…

Days pull you up just like a daffodil
Uprooted from its garden
They’ll tell you what you owe, but know even so
Rises the moon

You’ll be visited by sleep
I promise you that soon the autumn comes
To steal away each dream you keep
Breathe, breathe, breathe