As Susan Boyle said on more than one occasion...

I (rhymeswithplague, not Susan Boyle -- we’ll get to her in a minute) began this blog in September 2007 and subsequently posted about the summer solstice on, would you believe, the summer solstices in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Inexplicably (today’s five-syllable word), I did not post a single word about the summer solstice on the summer solstices in 2011 or 2012.

Here are those three posts from 2008, 2009, and 2010:

1. Get ready to party, people! (2008)

2. The long, hot summer approaches (2009)

3. What? Summer solstice already? (2010)

On the summer solstice in 2011, however, I posted Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar in which Mrs. RWP and I wished her brother a happy 80th birthday and I also mentioned the National Hollerin’ Contest in Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina.

And last year, on the summer solstice in 2012, I posted The vibrations of deathless music which included a video of Junior Brown singing “You’re Wanted by the PO-lice and My Wife Thinks You’re Dead” (3:36). Yes, it did.

These posts, taken as a whole, prove one and only one thing:
It is not just mad dogs and Englishmen who go out in the midday sun.

If you don’t get that cultural reference, let me enlighten you. Here is Noel Coward singing his own composition, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go Out in the Midday Sun” (2:30), which includes the line -- I do hope Yorkshire Pudding is in the house today -- “In Bangkok, at twelve o'clock, they foam at the mouth and run.”

I do wish you a happy solstice or a merry solstice or a safe and sane solstice or whatever it is that you want to be wished. This year the summer solstice occurred earlier today (June 21, 2013) at exactly 1:04 am EDT (5:04 UTC), when Earth’s Northern Hemisphere reached its point of greatest inclination to the Sun. [Editor’s note. In Earth’s Southern Hemisphere, today is the first day of winter. --RWP]

Warning: Do not try to balance an egg on its end today. That is possible only on an equinox.

Finally, as Susan Boyle said on more than one occasion, “Thank you for your support.”

The vibrations of deathless music

Some songs deserve to live on and on, and to be listened to frequently, and to be appreciated by one and all.

This isn’t one of them.

But I’m presenting it to you anyway, not because the singing is so great (although the singer’s voice reminds me a lot of Johnny Cash), and not because the chord progressions are so fantastic, and God knows it’s certainly not because of the subject matter.

It’s the guitar playing. This old boy plays a mean guitar.

Here’s Junior Brown singing “You’re Wanted by the PO-lice and My Wife Thinks You’re Dead” (3:36).

And if for some unearthly reason you might like to have a copy of the lyrics, here they are:

“My Wife Thinks You’re Dead”

It’s good to see you baby,
it’s been a long long while
We’re both a whole lot older
and seen a lot of miles
But things are really different now
since the good ol’ days
And you’ve been in some trouble
Since we went our separate ways
We’ll have to say hello
maybe some other time instead
Cause you’re wanted by the PO-lice
And my wife thinks you’re dead.

Somebody spread the rumor
that you had lost your life,
Least that’s the way I heard it
and what I told my wife
Now here you’re showin’ up again
and talk is gettin’ round
And I can see that one of us
will have to leave this town
If you think that I want trouble
Then you’re crazy in your head
Cause you’re wanted by the PO-lice
And my wife thinks you’re dead.

You never called or wrote me,
just up and disappeared
Nobody knew what happened,
where you been for all these years.
Now trouble’s what you’re lookin’ like
Cause trouble’s where you been
And I can see the kind of trouble
you could get me in
You better pay attention
to every word I said
Cause you’re wanted by the PO-lice
And my wife thinks you’re dead.

So goodbye to you baby,
I’m glad we got to talk
But I’m faithful to my wife
and I don’t ever break the law
I don’t know where you’re headed for,
But I know where you’ve been
We reminisced, now let’s just go
our separate ways again
Go find another ex-sweetheart
to hang around instead
Because you’re wanted by the PO-lice
And my wife thinks you’re dead.
I said, “You’re wanted by the PO-lice
And my wife thinks you’re dead.”

--Copyright 1996 by Jamieson Brown

[Editor’s note. The first person who can tell me where the title of this post comes from without looking it up will receive 50 bonus points. --RWP]

P.S. - The answer is in the fourth comment.