Soundtrack of My Life

Song: Flake
Artist: Jack Johnson
Album: Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

Is there an artist who makes you think of the beach and summertime than Jack Johnson? Not for my money there isn't.

Probably has something to do with the fact that Jack is a former professional surfer and his brand of acoustic, mellow rock automatically puts me sitting in the sand with a Corona on ice whenever I hear it.

There are any number of Jack Johnson songs I could have chosen for this week, since "I celebrate his entire catalogue" as John C. McGinley said in Office Space.

"Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" would have worked except Beast borrowed that CD from me four years ago when we were living together and I haven't seen it since. He did, for the record, take me to a Jays game as an apology.

"Upside Down" is a pretty cool little number too and gets bonus points for it's Curious George affiliation. Teaming with monkeys always impresses me.

But here is the thing that made "Flake" the choice: it's song #1 in the Jack Johnson Anthology. This is where it all began for Jack, at least on his own, and where I first got on board with the surfer boy from Hawaii who likes to kick it with Ben Harper and G. Love, two cats my university friend Tommy was trumpeting as must-adds to my musical collection before I removed my head from my ass and discovered their greatness.

Lyrically, the song is outstanding as well, with the chorus echoing a sentiment that pretty well everyone can agree with:

It seems to me that maybe,
It pretty much always means no
So don't tell me you might just let it go
And often times we're lazy
It seems to stand in my way
Cause no one no not no one
Likes to be let down

Additional to the killer atmosphere this song sets and the intelligence of the lyrics, I threw in a little extra treat with the link, as instead of the music video version of the song, we're going live performance with Ben Harper riding Steel Guitar shotgun for this bad boy.

Put on your board shorts, go bask in the sun and crank up the Jack... it's summer time baby!

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Having some font difficulties this morning... hopefully this doesn't look too bad.