Those sounds that mean summer really has arrived
What does summer sound like to you? Warm but not tropical. Clear skies, no sign of rain. Beers in the garden, a barbecue probably sizzling away in every residential street across the city. Hot enough to dust down the shorts and dare to risk dipping your toes in the sea.
It was the kind of weekend that your memory likes to try to convince you always makes up the bulk of summer.
A teaser of what is to come in the next couple of months, when the last days of spring have transitioned into June, July and August. Sure there will be thunderstorms and days of rain that will stick around longer than an unwanted guest, but it will be summer.
There will also be the promise that a heatwave could break out in real life – not just on the front page of the Daily Express.
But for now we will just have to make do with this sneak preview of better weather. And I more than did that, lounging in my faux grass back garden, lathered from head to toe and back again in sun cream, sipping a refreshing alcohol-free beer and trying to forget the disappointment known as football.
All of this was soundtracked by the new album from Bad Bunny, which was described as ‘striking first in the battle for the song of summer’ in one of the reviewsIread.
It got me thinking about what summer sounds like.
Because the tracks on Un Verano Sin Ti, with its fusion of Caribbean elements with Bad Bunny’s signature Reggaeton stylings, did make me feel as if I was on a beach hot-drinking out of a coconut. But I have never been to the Caribbean or anywhere tropical, so is it disingenuous to say tracks that evoke that feeling ‘sound like summer’?
Or would the real sound of summer be the same five notes blaring from an ice cream van as it turns down a street near my bedroom window? Is it the squelch of squeezing a suncream bottle or chatter from a neighbouring garden on warm nights.
Or is the ‘sound of summer’ simply anything that evokes the feeling of the
season? Let me know!