The songs that soundtrack summer

An authored playlist of Britain's best-loved summer soundtracks, told through a series of nostalgic personal experiences. 

[onesummersoundtrack]

Cecilia's story

Remembering my childhood is like looking through a kaleidoscope of memories; the hot summers in France spent lying on the scorched grass in the garden, and windy walks in Cornwall holding my Mother’s hand. As the memories shift into one another, the only residing factor is sound. The sound of waves, my Father’s laughter over the noise of the record player, the sound of my childhood slowly escaping my clutches. The familial crackle of the needle hitting vinyl, as Astral Weeks fills the air.

Summer for me means family, and family means music. I suppose the song that sticks with me most is Going Up The Country by Canned Heat. It makes me think of long car journeys, the hot heavy breath of the dog on my neck, and my Mother singing in the front seat.

It was the summer of 2001 that I really discovered my music. I’d been brought up on a diet of Marlena Shaw and Otis Redding and I thought I knew music, until I heard Canned Heat and I suppose my little ears just liked what they heard because it’s been a favourite ever since.Years later, lying in Ruskin Park with my sturdy Walkman by my side, it was always this song that would bring me back to those hazy summers of sleepy afternoons and the faded grandeur of the French Riviera. When I think of summer, I cannot help but hum; music is heat and life and love.

Later on as I grew up summer became about escapism and relief from the monotony of an inner London school where music meant Spice Girls not Lou Reed. Those summer holidays were a chance to remember what it was like to be me again, not an awkward 13 year old who chose Proust over play-dates. The summer of 2009 I was 15, and I fell in love. The fact that he was 3 times my age and happened to be dead didn’t matter; George Harrison was my world for 8 weeks and nothing but nothing could tear me away from All Things Must Pass. Music helped me grow up during those blistering summers of my youth; it provided not just the soundtrack to an uncertain adolescence but the guidebook to surviving life. It connected me to something outside myself, something I couldn’t bare to be without. 

Cecilia's Top 5

Canned Heat - Going Up The Country

Van Morrison - It’s All Over Now Baby Blue

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

It’s a Beautiful Day - White Bird

Francoise Hardy - Le Temps De L’Amour

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Seb's story

When asked about ‘Songs That Soundtrack Summer’; I reminisce of lying face up, in a sea of wavy elongated greenery in the British country side, English Rose oozing from a solo battery speaker, encompassing and rushing through me, as if I was slowly rotating, floating up towards the clear blue upper atmosphere. The sentimental ballad, that would struggle to stand alone (without the lyrics or vice versa), is iconic when combined; it creates something so compelling that it's at the very top of my summer playlist. For me every track here has a personal connection, a blurred memory of the first time it played on the radio or at a party. For every track, there's an emotion attached, whether it happy or sad. And that's the thing about summer soundtracks - they hook you in a way that's unique and telling, an emotional concoction of words and music that fade you into an old memory. 

Seb's Top 5

The Jam - English Rose

Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardener

The Struts - Put Your Money On Me

Pegasus Bridge - Yoko

St Paul and The Broken Bones - Broken Bones and Pocket Change

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Laura's story

Laura's story deals with returning to a childhood home as an adult - with new friends, new faces, and fresh thinking. 

As a child, I didn’t like summer much. The endless days, fading in and out of each other, seemed to lack a sense of purpose. Friends were far, depending on the whims of adults made me uneasy, time seemed to stretch to infinity.

So when I finally became a grown-up, I made it a point to make summer mine again, mostly by constantly keeping busy. Internships, trips to see friends on the other side of the world, working small jobs, making comics for a festival, to keep at bay that strange, nagging feeling of emptiness which scared me (and of course, enjoying myself too, and expanding my horizons).

Yet after four long and busy years of being a student, I was truly tired. I wanted a place to rest but also spend some time with the people who’d grown close to me in the past years.  After all, we’d soon be going our separate ways. This is how we ended up in my family’s seaside summer home, on the northern coast of France, where I hadn’t been in 7 years. We painted, drew, practiced harmonica, played ping pong and videogames, ate mussels and rode bikes, skateboarded, made big sandcastles to resist the sea, went for many swims including that one skinny dip under the stars and fought on beds like small children. We laughed a lot, made unexpected friends, drank our morning coffee on the beach, deepened our bonds and enjoyed quiet moments of sadness together in front of that great grey sky. It was a time in-between, the pleasant regression of childhood and the best of adulthood – driving around, cooking delicious meals, and drinking the apéro all the time.

Hidden stories were also written, loves born and reminded. In the shadows of my friend, I could discern that roommate of his, the one who had unexpectedly set the broken mechanisms of my heart working again this year. It was a beautiful time and I know that, when looking back, even the more painful & awkward moments will be precious.

For now here’s a mix of what we listened laughed danced and despaired to. In short, what moved our hearts - rocked by the sound of the sometimes grey, sometimes brown, sometimes blue sea that’s the Channel.

Laura's Top 5

Anna Karina & Serge Gainsbourg - Sous le soleil exactemen

Jacques Brel - Amsterdam

Georges Brassens - Je m'suis fait tout p'tit 

Jacques Brel - La Valse à mille temps

Mano Solo - Pas du gâteau 

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Rob's story

Rob is a full-time videographer and recent graduate living in London. His story is about a decision we all find ourselves caught between every summer - whether to work, or go out, find yourself and explore new friendships. 

This is the story of my 20th summer. I spent it in a small pub serving overpriced beer to overpaid people and veteran alcoholics. Working antisocial hours does have its benefits amongst its many drawbacks. The world is a different place sober at 3 AM. I’d look forward to long walks home; the gentle summer breeze cooled the hot nights and provided a sweet relief from the sticky and sweaty atmosphere of the drunkard’s hovel. With headphones, everything changes - the world is blocked out and I always liked that, it was peaceful walking the backstreets of an old town with no-one to disturb you. It’s a kind of peace that you don’t get that often so I always made sure to enjoy it.

It was a solitary summer though, with only a handful of outings with friends, much of it was spent either alone at home or busy working.  This started to get to me and it needed to be swiftly changed. Through a chance meeting I was invited to a party. I met some great friends and decided that I needed to enjoy my last month of the summer. After all money is great but I was not paid enough to be that miserable. I cut down my hours, spent the same time away from home but in better company than an old man with his head hanging over a pewter tankard telling me I looked like Tommy Cooper.  This was my last free summer, it didn’t really teach me much, perhaps I should have enjoyed it more, if I had knowledge of how the winter would be I likely would have.

Rob’s Top 5

Antarctigo Vespucci  - Sometimes

Fall Out Boy  - What A Catch, Donnie

Jonquil  - Mexico

Oberhofer  - Away Frm U

Here We Go Magic  - How Do I Know

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Rosie's story

Rosie story is a touching little glance into the life of adolescence - a time when fear is mixed with a whirlwind of happiness. The next few paragraphs are wonderful, dramatic and awe-inspiring. Check it.

Freedom from exams and essays the air pregnant with possibility. The summer makes it easier to break the law. Sipping on a bench until late at night isn’t such a chore when the nights are this warm. We downed our parent’s booze in anticipation of growing up. Shared glances and gripped chances, told, as we got old we’d never see these days again. This was the summer of fear, of wondering what we’d leave behind here. Heat for just harems and a t-shirt at 7am. Too much drive but not enough direction. Silence seeped the streets, as the town lay asleep. We shouted just to hear the echo, to know that we were alone. The only time we ever knew control.

Seagulls flapped like my new haircut in the morning breeze. This was the summer after I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, so far. I consumed chemicals like there was no tomorrow, because I was secretly hoping there wouldn’t be one. But there was and it was beautiful. Next to a friend, we danced in a park we wished we’d seen as kids. We walked and she let me talk, though with minds like sieves I’m not sure we covered anything – so I started to sing.

There’s something about the sun sat in a clear blue sky that always stops me trying to hide, that hints at something better to come. Something like a reason not to run.

This was the summer of hope and discovering reasons not to go.

Rosie's Top 5

Sweet Disposition – The Temper Trap

Jamie T – Spider’s Web

Alt-J – MS

Andrew Bird – Tenuousness (Live at The Basement)

Natty – Stoned on You

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Callum's story

'No-one gives a shit what you play so long as you stand on your amp while you do it.'

Summer Sixteen was the happiest I've ever been. It was also the unhappiest, but that's a winter story.

Sixteen was the one I spent playing in a band with my adopted brothers, shaking the bones of Somerset's most obscure village halls in an endless loop of post-exam parties. We jammed in the rain and played what we could as loud as we could: swaggering, stumbling technicolor sound that crossed British R'n'B, seventies fuzz and sailor folk. We dressed in tights and capes and bought a gobo to project angels onto our audiences' faces. We had a smoke machine and a Peugeot 106 with collapsible seats, which we used to defy physics by travelling to gigs with four players, our instruments and a cool-box for ice-lollies. We spent rehearsals messing with puppets and perfecting a 14-minute Can't Stop-Fire-Tamacun medley. We wrote setlists on napkins and made it up as we went along. It was fucking great.

Callum's Top 5

Wolfmother - Apple Tree 

The White Stripes - The Air Near My Fingers

The Hives - Walk Idiot Walk

Mando Diao - Motown Blood

The Who - My Generation

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Lucy's story

Lucy is a singer-songwriter, and musician based in London. Her piece tells the story of a visit to Glastonbury - flooded with sounds that she now calls her anthems of the summer. 

Glastonbury is the biggest festival in the world and it’s pretty much a lottery to get a ticket. I was lucky enough to go in 2011 and was treated to seeing Queen Bey headline on the Sunday night.

Famously Glastonbury flooded a few years before I went and this was no exception; we were camped next to the toilets and at the bottom of Pennard Hill and so much of the festival was spent stuck in the mud. But, mud aside, that didn’t matter; we had Beyoncé and booze (squash + vodka, obviously, for dem juicy shots).

But on the seventh day, maybe even for Beyoncé, Michael Eavis gave us a light.

I can’t say that I like Pedulum or Plan B all that much but, but regardless, I sat through six hours of bands - and without them this story wouldn’t be the same. In those final few hours of waiting, it became a battle of the band’s fans: teenage girls vs. bald, burly men. It was hot, it was sweaty and in hindsight it was really only a matter of time before we cracked. One by one, decked out in Beyoncé fancy dress, we decided to pack it in.

The thing is, once you’re that far in the crowd, it’s hard to get out and with no one else to turn to, we had to rely on the Babes of The Beyhive to help us out, and with super strength we surfed our way out to the ‘backstage’ first aid tent.

That might be the only time I’m ‘backstage’ at Glastonbury but I rinsed it for what it had, tissues and tap water, got a new space in the crowd and watched one of the best festival performances ever.

Lucy's Top 5

Little Dragon - Shuffle A Dream

Feist - I Feel It All

Beyonce - Why Don't You Love Me

Groove Armada - Superstylin

John Legend - PDA

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Martin's story

Martin is a writer, and local paper journalist from Stevenage. His story is a wonderful coming of age tale - about his first nights out as an 18-year-old. 

To paraphrase Ricky Gervais: "Stevenage is the kind of place where you can get up and go to London but you don't."

My Hertfordshire hometown is not a hub of modern culture. Our town centre is a blur of bargain bins and betting shops slapped together with interchangeable faux-metrosexual "clothing outlets" like Blue Inc and River Island.  

The official motto for Stevenage is "The heart of a town lies in its people" - a little ironic when you remember we can claim the holy trinity of highest eviction, teenage pregnancy and obesity rates in the county.  

My best mate hit his 18th birthday six months before I did. He spent the interim evenings at our only local nightclub - The Chicago's Rock Café - drinking vodka Red Bulls, passing out and pissing himself on the pavement at 4am. God, it looked like fun.

I still remember my first night in that hellhole. 

The floor was sticky, the smoking area was crowded, the staff were rude, the clientele was worse and the music was awful. 

Despite all this, I will never forget fist-pumping the fuck out of the air above my head when '212' by Azealia Banks came on at around 2am. I was too smashed to care how unnatural my gangly body looked jiving around the swamped dancefloor - it was a level of care-free abandon I hadn't experienced since toddlerhood.  

'212' is not a good song and, honestly, most of the songs on my list aren't technically "favourites" of mine but they always manage to take me back somewhere special, somewhere sunny and somewhere in Summer. 

Martin's Top 5

Azealia Banks - 212

Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?

Maddox - First Time, One Time, Last Time

Gerard and the Watchmen - Hesitate

Foals - My Number   

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Jack's story

Jack is London-based music writer and manager, a party enthusiast, and cynical dance music fan. His story takes us on a journey into what a London summer really feels like - dirty, stuffy and wonderful.  

If you can’t shake loose a few inhibitions in summer then, really, when can you? Summer is a season for saying YES. YES, I will discreetly fist pump as I listen to Pitbull on the 196 to Brockwell Lido, having carefully turned the volume down to avoid any incriminating headphone leakage. YES, I will wear that loudly patterned shirt that definitely won’t pass the test of time when it comes to showing my offspring photographic evidence of what daddy wore 20 years ago. And YES, I will buy that discounted crate of Carling Zest with a twist of lime, despite never having previously liked Carling, or, for that matter, lime. Why? Because it’s SUMMER.

My summer story is a reoccurring one - come June 1st each year, it's this logic that justifies my repeated, ball-wobblingly loud listens to moombahton master Dillon Francis’ remix of Toddla T’s ‘Take It Back’, which under any normal circumstances is probably the most ridiculous song of all time. If a drop so unashamedly fruity was to barge its way out of your speakers in the bleak midwinter, you’d soon find your front door crashing off its hinges as a gaggle of Stasi officers burst in to drag you away for cognitive correction. Playing the summer card can right many a wrong. Scrawny, gangly honkies such as your author can sleep soundly at night in the knowledge that their screwed up pouty face and awkward gun-finger bounce in reaction to UGK’s ‘Int’l Players Anthem’ shall go unpunished. For summer is not a time for punishment. Summer is a time for YES.

Jack's Top 5

Toddla T - Take It Back (Dillon Francis Remix)

Gyptian - Hold Yuh

Diana Ross - I’m Coming Out

UGK feat. Outkast - Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)

Gramophonedzie - Why Don’t You

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Sam's story

Sam is a 25-year-old music writer and musician based in North London. His piece is an utterly brilliant tale of how a summer road trip can be the catalyst for unforgettable experiences.

Julie and Pablo picked us up from a bar in Montélimar. In their beat up van, jangling bottles separated us for the first time in days. Home rang out on the stereo as our uncertain eyes met across cases of water, picon and tequila. As the van bounced along dirt roads, we watched rocks tumble down canyons and let the emerald beauty engulf us entirely. 

Surrounded by wild mint and foxgloves, the village we were met with was frozen in time. Old farmhouses speckled the hillside like buckshot. The internet hadn’t made it this far, there were no police so even the mayor’s son was selling grass. Drunk on red wine, wild honey and roast rabbit - slowly the Grenouille and praying mantis became our friends.

I played guitar for you on the terrace and snuck out for late night swims. These beats soundtracked every occasion, Broken Social Scene beaming across mountain tops and Cunninlynguists screaming deep into the night. 

Four years later you told me it was the happiest time of your life, looking back it was one of mine too. I still have memories of being caught skinny dipping near Pont d'Arc, ducking into a bar to escape a violent, flashing storm and singing songs with the Swiss. That was the last time we watched our boys compete for a cup we last won in ’66. Now we’re apart and doing it again. 

South Africa to Brazil, things change and I'm sorry. 

Sam's Top 5

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Home

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Airplane over the sea

Broken Social Scene - Fire Eye’d Boy

Cunninlynguists - Nothing but strangeness

Dosh - Everybody cheer up song

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Will's story

Will is a London-based art graduate, and a constant summer traveller. As I write this, he's working as part of an art project in Estonia. We wish him luck. 

My first memories of summer come from being in the back of the car, four years old; silent all the way to Devon, as The Beatles’ Revolver plays on the car stereo. But the quiet child of my memories fades when ‘Good Day Sunshine’ comes on.

For the past few years, my summers have been about engaging the four-year-old me by running away from my familiar city and finding myself in strange, new adopted countries. My only agenda becomes making new friends and creating more valuable memories. In these memories I live a parallel life, where my family comprises people from all over the world. Our home is a beach with a mystical history that lies between patches of forest and mountains. Every night is a session of eating, drinking and singing next to gentle lapping waves, under a clear ceiling of stars, with the sand as our beds.

I am referring to the Praia do Mar de Fora, where I've returned every year since walking the Camino de Santiago in 2011. Every time I hear 'Soladito Marinero' by Fito y Los Fitipaldis, for all of its cheesy Americana, it brings back to me those beautiful Spaniards, Italians, Germans, Danes, and the many others who would sing with me by the fire. 

Will's Top 5

The Beatles – Good Day Sunshine

DeVotchka – How It Ends

Midlake – We Gathered In Spring

Sam Cooke – Chain Gang

Fito y Los Fitipaldis – Soladito Marinero 

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Lora's story

Lora's story is a nostalgic jump into an old relationship - one soundtracked to the beats of Dilla and the soft cadence of Badu. Lora is 21, and a student in London. 

I will never forget those three months of groundhog days, when the hardest decision we had to make was who would be making the next trip to Tesco express, only to find, for the third time that week, we’d stocked them out of the three for a fiver deal on lager.The defeated solider would then clamber back over the potholed sand to the rest of the pack, baring the terrible news and some sort of compensation.

Day in day out Badu’s voice and Dilla's beats drizzled like honey from the battered speakers, melting us all into a sluggish contentment . You sat there in the shade, all rugged and carefree, strumming at the guitar strung over your belly, beaming and un-phased by life, because at that moment in time, you had it made.

The beach was our home and the sea our front garden, where we would bask in the sunshine and spiral into the moonshine. We lived on schrapnel and special brew and barely moved from that one spot the whole summer, but those were some of the happiest days of my life.

Lora's Top 5

Erykah Badu – Didn’t cha know

Atlantic Connection - Bayamon

Rolling Stones – Beast of Burden

Terry Reid – Ain’t no shadow

St. Germain – Sure Thing

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Robbie's story

Inspired by The Guardian music writers’ summer soundtracks – this is my own glance into Summertime nostalgia. Like theirs, each track has it’s own story – caught in memories of wishy-washy nostalgia, past relationships and a million summer sunsets. 

Sticky sleepless nights, sun-blushed picnics and road trips bind together my memories of summer days. From carnivals to carousels, warehouses, to nights sleeping in marinas on the South Coast, every tentative summer joy has been embellished with it’s own soundtrack.

Last summer I was in love for the first time in my life – and as it goes when you’re with someone; nothing in the world ever seemed to quite matter. So while I grew distant from home and started sharing experiences with someone new - our musical playlists started to sync. One July evening, carried by the hot heavy brush of dusty air in Hyde Park, we watched Ray Davies.  For weeks, our heads were caught in the romance of a London summer. ‘Waterloo Sunset’ became our little anthem – the tune we’d whisper in each other’s ear every time things got difficult. By summers’ end we’d parted ways – and as the swing of the autumn sun drew the nights closer – that one summer started to feel like a faded memory. ‘Waterloo Sunset’ might be the faded memory of a broken relationship, but it was still the anthem of a great summer.

I remember the long road trips to campsites as a kid, and the even longer journeys in an old beat up stuffy Renault estate as we passed field after field of nothingness. My mums’ ever hungry lust to switch off the raucous of my dads’ passion for 80’s guitar music, and the howling vocals that used to erupt from my mum as I stack on the one R&B CD we had. Nowadays, car journeys seem all the more surreal – the turn of the ignition can bode the start for a weekend of new musical discoveries. One tune can be the key to an ever-changing road trip.

For me, it’s these five songs that have been the anthem of my summers – from every camping trip, to every party, to Notting Hill and Glastonbury, to every football match, bike ride and BBQ. As more entries come in - slowly but surely, we’ll build a soundtrack to the perfect summer, as told through your own experiences.

Robbie’s Top 5

Ray Davies – Waterloo Sunset

LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends

Amy Winehouse  - He Can Only Hold Her

Marlena Shaw – California Soul

Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger

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The Mission

Last Sunday - while the sun blazed across the mid-day sky, I came across the wonderful Guardian Music writers' own 'soundtracks to the summer'. As a concept, it was simple - their writers, telling the stories behind their favourite summer tunes, in short, snappy nostalgic accounts. 

From stories of first-love, to childhood holidays, each one was a poignant, personal and provocative account of the memories we all have of past-summers, and the tunes that we remember them by. 

This blog is about continuing that idea, and extending it to some of Britain's best loved writers, musicians, and new talent - as well as the people who make the music industry tick. 

The format is simple.

One story, five tunes. Real life memories, lived experiences and nostalgic trips into the past - tell us the story of your own summer playlist.

Your task is set.

It's time to get sharing. 

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