Anatomy of a Mixed Tape, Track the Thirteenth

13. 4^th of July—Aimee Mann

As I noted earlier, in this post, later in the Mixed CD another Aimee Mann song, featuring the word “June,” would be reviewed. This is it.

There are actually two Aimee Mann songs I know of that include “June”; the one reviewed here, and “Ghost World,” from Bachelor No. 2. This song is from the same album on which “Stupid Thing” is, namely Whatever.

The song begins:

Today’s the Fourth of July
Another June has gone by

Junes go quick. Suddenly, somehow, it’s the Fourth again, year after year, in hot July, and you think, before the summer’s even over, “Where’d it go?” I have felt that way before about many Junes. As Chris Eigeman says as the character Max in Noah Baumbach’s film Kicking and Screaming (just released on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection):

I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I’m reminiscing this right now.

I know the feeling; the weight of all the days and people and places that have come before begins to stack up, to bear down on you, and it’s just enervating. Which is not how it is all the time; it’s rather a matter of perspective, a feeling that comes (and goes) from time to time, as Ms. Mann seems to acknowledge with the somewhat flippant summing-up line, “So that’s today’s memory lane.”