Crucial Track for May 24, 2025

"Horchata" by Vampire Weekend

Listen on Apple Music

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Describe your favorite summer as a kid using a single song. As a kid, we camped almost year round, mostly in the Adirondacks, but every summer we went camping for a week in Rhode Island. I loved camping on the beach near the ocean, playing in tide pools all day and navigating salt marshes with our canoe. It was so different than the tucked in feeling of sleeping under a canopy of trees- it was breezy, wild, easy going and expansive. We visited Block Island which felt like being an a desert island- it was so beautiful, raw and empty. We also made trips to Newport to explore shops and historic mansions situated atop cliffs looming over the ocean in one direction and perched above a beautiful boat harbor in the other. It felt like a fantasy life that was glamorous, always sunny and carefree. For whatever reason, Vampire Weekend’s sound captures that Rhode Island feeling for me. I had a hard time choosing just one song that sums up what summers in Rhode Island felt like.