Love at First Listen : Hunter - Jess Williamson / Dan Mangan - Cold in the Summer

I am tempted to simply say these two are great songs , go listen and leave it at that. But I'll give a little taste of why these songs sparked immediate love.

To be honest, when I first heard Jess Williamson, I was listening to her combined project with Waxahatchee 'Plains' and couldn't quite get into it. But in this album has certainly changed my tune on Jess Williamson and prolific and simple songwriting. But where she had me hooked was with her infectious 'Hunter'. In this beautiful ballad, Jess asserts herself in a new space, navigating the search for love after long term relationships that have given her both tremendous peace and also tremendous turmoil : "I've been through the wolves and they ate me raw. I worked both sides at the Shangri-La". In the world of dating apps, ghosting, narcs, dating can be unsteady and treacherous journey, but Jess knows what she wants and is ready to wait it out on the "hunt" for the "real thing".

She reminisces on the romanticized images of love she held, now coming to terms with the reality of love and relationships. And throughout the song, she's sharing that wisdom with the listener. "When you're young, you'll live through hell for the dream. But hell is a real place". Here she's warning the listener to shirk off delusions about doing, to quote Meatball, "Anything for love", because the reality of love can be harsher than one can image. And so now, with time and this wisdom, Jess knows her worth and is not willing to settle for anything less than the love she deserves. We hear this sentiment in lines like" I want a mirror not a piece of glass". In one of my favorite lines of this song, she delivers a beautiful affirmation of her own ability to love deeming it as "pure as the universe". Perhaps in the universe's fundamental, life-giving, and sustaining nature, it's providing us with a perfect pure love. And that love is one worth waiting to give and receive.

Although Jess may be a hunter, she's content with leaving behind anything that isn't the love she's looking for. She ends her chorus singing "Baby it's fine. I'd a blown your mind, but I guess I'm gonna give you space". She knows what she's got to offer and knows what she wants. And she'll keep hunting until she finds it.

Dan Mangan - Cold in the Summer

There's not as much to dive into here, but I have to say from the start of the bassline I was kind of hooked. The song's essentially about a man who's trying to fight his own destructive or counterproductive behavioral patterns. And thus, he likens the lameness of his own behavior and attitude to "being the guy who catches a cold in the summer". I feel like most of the song has an undertone of I don't wanna be such a loser. The airy backing vocals almost feel like he's sighing, as if he's tired with himself. I am kind of in love with the wishy-washiness and detachment he has to these images of his daily life : Daily shaver, coupon saver, Collect the paper, wander the neighborhood".

These are the mundane pictures he hopes to leave behind him in search of a more intentional more connected life. And so, Dan delivers in this chorus a lightly heartfelt plea to the universe and himself really. He wants to be free of his old ways and just wants to fully indulge and make the most of life. "He can't stand it" anymore and is ready to be different from what he's been. And I can definitely get behind that.