The Mamas & the Papas, "I Saw Her Again Last Night"

That lyric really takes on an ugly sheen now, dunnit?

But ignoring John and Mackenzie Phillips' family affair, I've long wanted to repurpose "I Saw Her Again Last Night" to be about a closeted guy with a beard-girlfriend. And watching Mad Men a few weeks ago, when Sal daintily and diligently performed the entire "Bye Bye Birdie" choreograph for his silently horrified wife, I thought to myself: "To string her along's just not right ..."

Justin Hayward, "Forever Autumn"

So begins another fall, and this message of unresolved and unsatisfied longing feels appropriate for a summer that never truly became summer, in a year when few dreams came true: "Forever Autumn," Justin Hayward's best work outside the Moodies.

Friday Funtime: (Rerun) Talk Like a Pirate Day

Sorry, didn't have time to come up with anything new, so here's a rerun. Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day; check out last year's observation of the day for some arrrrrr-tistic inspiration. Avast ye!

Pet Shop Boys, "Go West"

It's September 17 again, the anniversary of my 1996 move to San Francisco, a huge event in my personal development. I've told that story on this blog before, so today I'll just offer a note of tribute to the West Coast. While I've been in NYC for 6+ years and figure to be here quite a while longer, it was in SF I felt most fully at home and most fully able to live and breathe as myself. So for those feeling dislocated today, I offer this simple bit of advice, rendered originally by the Village People but more effectively by the Pet Shop Boys: "Go West."

PS: There's lots of hammer-and-sickle imagery in that PSB video. Glenn Beck, you can go fuck yourself.

First Class, "Beach Baby"

I wanted to get this beautifully executed Beach Boys homage in before the summer's over. As genre imitations go, First Class's "Beach Baby", a Top 5 hit from the late summer of '74, was a spot-on surf harmonizer - with the assistance of a bright and blasting horn chart - and there's something about the way Tony Burrows sings "the suntanned crewcut all-American male" that to me is downright sexy in its evocations.

Ah, for a weekend in Rehoboth Beach. From July to the end of September, everyone deserves to take away at least one memory of a beautiful body lying on the sand.

Jim Carroll, "People Who Died"

Well, it was either this or "She's Like the Wind," and I'm not up to the challenge of reconciling Patrick Swayze's titular phrase with his observation, "she's out of my leeee-eague." I suppose the wind is out of my league too, given that we're different states of matter.

So yeah. Swayze and Jim Carroll - those are people who died, died.

The Beatles, "Revolution #9"

Number 9 ... Number 9 ... Number 9 ...

Paul Anka, "Hold Me 'Til the Mornin' Comes"

Last weekend I had the displeasure of hearing, in a Casey Kasem '70s AT40 countdown, Paul Anka's noxious "I Believe There's Nothing Stronger Than Our Love," one of his mid-'70s hit duets with the otherwise unknown Odia Coates. His swarthy warbling has always rubbed me the wrong way - I believe there's nothing flatter than his voice.

But Anka got a small reprieve this past weekend, when in a rebroadcast of one of Casey's '80s shows, I was reminded of his last chart gasp. "Hold Me 'Til the Mornin' Comes", his first Top 40 charter in almost five years, peaked for two weeks in the chart's anchor position this month in 1983 - and it actually deserved better. Anka wisely hangs out in the background, turning the show over to the Splenda-sweetened voice of Peter Cetera for the soaring refrain. "Hold Me" is really no different from the ballad formula Cetera was working with David Foster and Chicago at the time - you're the inspiration and a hard habit to break, so it's hard for me to say I'm sorry - and it's worth noting how closely Chicago stuck to the formula after Cetera's 1985 departure, "Will You Still Love Me" sounding uncannily like this one.

But "Hold Me 'Til the Mornin' Comes" had two other things working against it: the lyric, an attempt at having one's cake and eating it too, is barely believable; and it's very difficult for two men to sing a love-song duet without appearing to be singing to each other. (It's the Air Supply curse.) I for one would rather not picture Cetera holding Anka 'til the mornin' comes. But I'm glad I was reminded of this song's existence.

George Michael, "Killer / Papa Was a Rollin' Stone"

Last year I used today's date as the peg to play one of the Temptations' very best efforts - not to mention Norman Whitfield's finest hour. This year, it's George Michael's turn to tell us what happened on the third of September.

Michael's merging in 1993 of "Rollin' Stone" with Seal's "Killer" was a winning combination, and sadly, one of the last times he exhibited any particular musical adventure and ambition. He's spent the 2000s in a drug-induced lethargy, seemingly only minimally interested in music anymore. A shame for someone who was once one of pop's most elite triple threats.

Neil Diamond, "September Morn"

Although summer doesn't officially end for another three weeks or so, September 1 marks for me, and I'm sure others, the psychological end of the season. (Labor Day's never been a lively vacation weekend for me.) I'll cite another summer song or two before the seasons change, but for now, a way to ease into the coming autumn: Neil Diamond's "September Morn."

How fortunate a man Neil is: By this point, not only did he get to wear glittery outfits that a figure skater would scratch your eyes out for, he increasingly got away with writing material like this that demands only a speak-sing from a less-than-an-octave range. I wonder what kind of rivalry he and the more vocally gifted if less lyrically introspective Barry Manilow had going around 1980.