I love love. It is the most fulfilling thing one can experience. It is insuperable. Because it is the greatest thing to have, it is also the greatest thing to lose. Sometimes I want to tie it to a stake in the middle of a city and have an angry mob violently castigate it while pummeling it with projectiles—nothing hard or sharp, though. Maybe pool noodles or Beanie Babies. Because after the tirade, you’ll run back to untie it every time, bawling, “I’m. So. SSSSSORRRYYYYYYAAAAAHHHHHH!” while a large sea drains from your face. Because you love love, and no matter how much it metaphorically and literally tortures you, you can’t do any better.
I also love summer. Though more debatable than love, you can’t do better than summer, too. Flowers bloom every morning while birds revel in their gaiety; trees, beautifully green, line languid rivers; the air is warm enough to negate the need for clothes (but not sunscreen!); thunderstorms galvanize grey skies; eyes ride the lightning: the perfect time for love. One doesn’t always have love in summer, but surely summer is best.
I think Hey Ocean! would agree. It’s Easier To Be Somebody Else somehow crystallizes the familiar days, nights, and laments from that chronological sweet spot. While it’s easy to roister at the beach and the bar, Hey Ocean!—though incomparably cute—are not so naïve. Rather, they are completely and thoroughly unabashed. The island/coastal pop/funk feels as good as an unexpected kiss from a lovely miss, while the ruminating jams feel as somber as being stranded and soaked in suffocating rain two thousand miles away.
Love has given me some of the most memorable, euphoric, awful, and character-defining moments of my life. It’s also given me some of the most drawn-out, glum, and devastating moments of my life. Love is not perfect, but it is simple. At the end of the day—hopefully—it’s just a big, uncontrollable smile on your face.
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