Songs of Summer – Day 5

“The Boys of Summer” by The Ataris

(Words/Music: Don Henley and Mike Campbell, Album: So Long, Astoria, Columbia Records 2003)

When released in 2003, this song raised a lot of eyebrows because it took a somewhat ethereal and melancholy favorite from the 80’s and turned it into a pop punk hit. Not only did the band update the song musically, but many (myself included) were amused that the re-working was so complete that they changed the lyrics as well. The famous line from the original “I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” was changed to “I saw a Black Flag sticker on Cadillac” to reflect the band’s personal debt to the seminal 80’s hard core punk band.

Much like The Lemonheads’ cover of “Mrs. Robinson,” Social Distortion’s cover of “Ring of Fire,” or My Chemical Romance’s cover of “Desolation Row,” The Ataris speed up the pace and crank up the volume on a popular song and infuse it with new energy and attitude to expose it to a new realm of listeners. And while the song eventually suffered from being overplayed during the summer of 2003, looking back at it some seven years later (already!), the song stands up as a viable cover and is a worthy choice for any summertime hit-the-road mix. I know it will be on mine.

More The Ataris: AmazonMP3 – last.fm – AllMusic – eMusic

More Re-worked Thursday posts from shelterfromthenorm