Indian Summer

beat happening's best song i dare say?

this is a pretty simple song actually

its about the last days of summer, indian summer rather, a brief period of warm weather between autumn and winter. its about two summer lovers, given the last chance to reunite. they went to a cemetery and had breakfast, and it probably started to rain.

I don't think they'd make the song if it was purely about the place in Olympia, because of the other meaning of Indian Summer. But I'm sure that's part of it. It's about country-side enjoyment and playing around in late summer, at least. it's less about actual events than fantasy hopes, something kids do a lot when they really enjoyed being someplace and want to go back. "We'll come back for Indian Summer and go our separate ways." That separate ways is what I think a lot of people ignore when they listen to it. People like it for the simple, strong pastoral imagery, and the adorable idea of having a picnic in the cemetery, croquet, abandoned farms, picking fruit, etc. I think the bit about norms and the abandoned farm is kind of a nostalgia or longing for simple, small scale agrarianism, and overall the song celebrates that kind of thing as being plain fun. As far as deeper meaning goes, it can go in a purely twee direction like morbot suggests or it could go in a more twisted direction like 1fish does. Knowing beat happening it's probably meant kind of on that line between tongue-in-cheek creepiness/irony and real sincere longing for these peaceful love days, deliberately ambiguous, like some of the lines. Do you really think calvin thinks "we will never change, no matter what they say"?

could be he's recalling a fleeting childhood romance from a summer long gone. "Boy tasting wild cherry / touch girl apple blossom " - his 1st kiss and/or sexual experience perhaps and just recalling and revelling in the memory of a more innocent period of his life

I don't get it either, but it doesn't matter, I don't get alot of songs, I just LISTEN to them.

Indian Summer is a golf and country club in Olympia (where they're from). It's actually right near Martin Way which he says in the song but it's not in the lyrics here.

he could be talking about going down martin way.

lost verse, after second chorus:

i touch your hem you say let's stroll down martin way pick plums, abandoned farm who let norms come to harm?

also, verses 3 & 4 (according to this site) should actually be in the reverse order.

Um, I have to say, clearly about going on a picnic on a nice day in autumn and then necking in the woods. Boy tasting? Touch a girl? I touch your hem? Clearly about oral sex.

I live in olympia and indian summer is usually used for school proms. plus I wouldn't say that its right near martin way. you drive on it for a minute or two to get there but thats about it.