my song of the summer: tarkio's "keeping me awake"

(download)

This song popped up on my radar a couple a weeks through Pandora and I've been in love with it ever since. Tarkio had a three-year run out of Montana from 1996 through 1999. That distinctive, and perhaps familiar, voice you hear is the current Decemberist frontman Colin Meloy and indeed this album feels a bit like the Decemberists meet Uncle Tupelo.

"Keeping Me Awake" evokes the sunshine, romance and fleeting nature of summer that I always feel in late July and early August and it makes me ache for the Outer Banks vacation I'll be taking here soon. If you like it, i highly recommend picking up Omnibus, which collects Tarkio's recorded material during their short-lived existence.

If your like me and appreciate the Decemberists in small doses, but really dig bands like the afore-mentioned Uncle Tupelo, Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch and Conor Oberst this is collections will find a permanent home in your preferred MP3 player and/or smart phone. you can pick up the album through your local iTunes store.

Here are the lyrics:

Summer, it came
like a light across the highlands
and we laid it down.
You wore a dress
made of light from the islands
and we sent postcards home.

In dying light
this was not to be forgotten
‘cause we are the chosen few.
Into the sea with the touch of softest cotton
Beneath this angel moon
Its been keeping me awake

Leaving this behind was my first mistake
and I'm not so strong
to be satisfied by all the things I've done
and the things it threw away.

You wrote your name
as we lay among the heather.
What you left behind
Following paths that would lead us both together
Let us lose our minds
Its been keeping me awake

Leaving this behind was my first mistake
and I'm not so strong
to be satisfied by all the things I've done
by the things it threw away.

Summer, it fell
and it coursed across the highlands
and so quickly gone.
Your faded dress for years now tied away and silent
and the night's late lullaby
has been keeping me awake.

Leaving this behind was my first mistake
and I'm not so strong
to be satisfied by all the things I've done
by all the things it threw away.
By all the things it threw away
By all the things it threw away
By all the things it threw away