Issue link: http://southshoremagazine.uberflip.com/i/687045
46 by Erica Ford Sweeney What Happened to the Needy Summer Love Song? If pop music is to be believed, summer love was intense in the 80's. Love affairs ran fast and furious - like Romeo and Juliet, but with mullets and Zinka. And instead of Juliet on the Capulet balcony, it's Tammi screaming, "wherefore art thou Chad?!" off of the roof deck of Lenny's Clam Hut. The gist of the 80's summer love song is that a couple just had the most romantic summer of their lives, in which (a) brown skin shone in the sun (Don Henley); (b) lovers were young and restless (Bryan Adams); and (c) kisses were hotter than the Santa Ana winds (Belinda Carlisle). They swore they'd be together forever. Not just during the summer! Even when Tammi's roots grow out and she's not high on Bartles n' Jaymes' Strawberry Hill, 24/7. Even when Chad's toned lifeguard torso packs on winter poundage and disappears under a B.U.M. Equipment sweatshirt… I'll still love you. But, alas, "These violent delights have violent ends" (Shakespeare). Despite those passionate promises whispered in a crowded Sbarro, autumn has come. "Nobody on the roads. Nobody on the beach." Old lovers scan the empty wasteland that was the former site of their sizzling love. All that's left is a half empty bottle of Sun In, a seagull pecking at the sandy remnants of an old french fry, and Op shorts that will never find their owner. Enter the 80's summer love song!* As Don Henley says, they "should just let it go - but" - they won't! They can't! They will not accept that September hath so cruelly stolen those halcyon days of making out while Winger played on a boom box. His love for her "will still be strong, after the boys of summer have gone."** Bananarama cannot smile, because they were cruelly left on their own. Chris Isaak's whole "world was on fire," and no one could save him but Helena Christensen on a sepia-toned beach. *** Richard Marx has pulmonary failure, because "every single breath" he took for 3 months had been hers! Belinda Carlisle doesn't care what she does or says anymore, or even if she combs her hair or gets up in the morning. Come Labor Day, her lover hopped a one-way train and now life is pointless. But these overdramatic songs don't exist anymore. Apparently, younger music artists don't have the same abandonment issues as the Gen-X latchkey kids, because they don't seem to care if their relationships fizzle. There's no tolerance for clinginess in modern summer songs. In the Billboard Top Summer Song of 2012, Carly Jepsen sings, "Call me. Maybe." Her noncommittal sentiment is significantly less ardent