· music
Cruel Summer (versions)
Fifth entry in the music-that-helps series — Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" (1983). A lonely-but-moving song: the lyric names left-behind isolation, the production is dance-pop drive. The contradiction is the engine — you are alone *and* you are moving anyway. Particularly fitting for late May in Houston, going into the summer when the heat amplifies what's already pressing.
