Put A Record On: The 2025 Summer Playlist (Marissa's Version)
No songs about digging your toes in the sand included, I apologize
It’s summer here in Nashville – technically summer anyway, despite continuous grey skies and rain. It’s summer because my kids are out of school, so we have already aggressively transitioned into twice-daily ice cream cones and very late dinners while we watch the Wonder Years. For many people, summer means music festivals, and it’s not that I am opposed – get me to Montana for Under the Big Sky or Rhode Island for Newport Folk, and I’m game - but otherwise I’m a more casual summer music person. I love a free show in the park, catching a favorite in a sweaty amphitheater, a bluegrass band in a hatch shell or airplane hangar or pier or whatever makeshift space presents itself. I spent summers as a kid either working the gates at Central Park Summerstage and hopping the train out to Jones Beach: it truly doesn’t feel like we’ve made the break from winter unless I’m outdoors listening to music.
Like any rational person, music soundtracks my summers, and when I’m not at a show, I’m finding any moment I can to hang outdoors with my family listening to music and splashing around, or taking a ridiculously long drive somewhere because I have discovered I am a road trip person (?!), especially this time of year.
Natalie put together a perfect summer playlist last week and while my personal playlisting skills do not compare, I just went with what I felt like listening to this summer: summer as a vibe, not a place. A mix of new and old, some favorites, nothing too aggressive or wild to match my state of mind these days. Hope you enjoy it!
