May 2018 Playlist: heatwave

The only people who romanticize summers in the South are people who have never lived here. It’s not all front porches and sweet tea, lightning bugs and bare feet, like television and old novels would have you believe.

It ain’t pretty.

May is a tenuous month in the Deep South, where the summer rain hasn’t settled in but the heat sure has. It’s been obliteratingly hot in Memphis already.

It’s May 23, and the Weather Channel says it “feels like” 97 degrees.
It’s May 23, and the thermometer in my car reads “106.”
It’s May 23, and summer doesn’t officially start until June 21, and it’s already basically one hundred degrees with 94% humidity.

There’s heat coming out of the sky and heat coming out of the pavement and heat inside your car and heat inside your house–there’s no escaping it. Everything feels heavy, hot, sticky, and oppressive. You start to go bananas pretty early in the season. It’s weird to think of places that have seasons, or at least four seasons. It’s weird to think that there has ever been a time in your life that it’s ever been anything but hot. Just…six more months…

Despite growing up in the Mississippi Delta, I was unprepared for summer in the city. The stifling heat is amplified by the constant movement of cars, people, trains, airplanes; everything starts to blend together in a dull, inescapable roar. I fight a futile battle between my one hundred year old house and my three hundred dollar utility bill. I fight a futile battle of forcing myself to ever leave said house when not absolutely necessarily; my skin melts to the hot leather car seats if I try. The Weather Channel predicts rain every day, but it never actually happens so the summer fever never actually breaks.

The only thing you can really do is crank up the volume, put on some sunscreen, and wait out the heatwave.

Thanks, Mother Nature: I hate it.

Broke & Beautiful May 2018 Playlist
heatwave

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Quintron – All Night Right of Way
Spotify | Google Play | iTunes | Bandcamp | Amazon

<a href="http://quintronandmisspussycat.bandcamp.com/album/sucre-du-sauvage">Sucre Du Sauvage by Quintron and Miss Pussycat</a>

Broken Bells – Meyrin Fields
Spotify | Google Play | iTunes | Amazon

Jay Som – Everybody Works
Spotify | Google Play | iTunes | Amazon

Bass Drum of Death – Shattered Me
Spotify | Google Play Music | iTunes | Amazon

Speedy Ortiz – Lean In When I Suffer
Spotify | Google Play Music | iTunes | Amazon

Girls – Big Bad Mean Motherfucker
Spotify | Google Play Music | iTunes | Amazon

Jets to Brazil – Your Xrays Have Just Come Back From the Lab and We Think We Know What Your Problem Is
Spotify | Google Play Music | iTunes | Amazon | Bandcamp