95 Songs of Summer, #48 - "Summerlong" (2005)

Kathleen Edwards is one of those artists who always seems poised to cross the divide between cult favorite and big star, but never quite makes it to the other side.  However, her most recent album was her most popular, and the connection (both personal and musical) with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver is bound to help her get some attention.

Her debut album, "Failer," received a ton of positive reviews, but for some reason I never got around to buying it (you can't buy every album, after all).  But during the summer of 1995, we were on a short vacation in Santa Cruz, and during one afternoon when we were killing time before the starting time of a movie, we wandered into Borders (the late and lamented...) and I decided to give her second album (newly released at the time), "Back to Me," a listen.  I began with the first track, loved it...skipped to the second, loved it...and so on.

"Summerlong" is what I would call a perfect pop song - if there was any justice in the world, it would have become a big hit.  No less an authority than Cameron Crowe apparently agrees, because he used the song in his movie "Elizabethtown."  The video below is a homemade effort using scenes from the movie; I used it because the recorded version of the song is superior to any of the live performances that are currently available on YouTube.

Kathleen Edwards, "Summerlong," from the summer of 2005.