B-Side Guys

Steve Koester has always written from the Catskills outward, and “Girl of Summer” is no exception, except here the outward reach goes surprisingly far. The song starts in the particular (bull pens, dope dens, wool caps, fake fur boots) and ends up somewhere close to elegy, not for a person exactly, but for a whole accumulation of things the narrator is already beginning to mourn in real time.

The lyrical move that makes it work is the cascade of goodbyes in the back half. Koester lines up cultural totems (Norma Jean, Yellow Brick Road, the familiar names from American pop mythology) and dismisses them one after another without ceremony. “Goodbye to all that, forever, goodbye.” The gesture is clearance, not nostalgia. The question that follows (“Is this the end of the road? / Or is it just the beginning / Or is it just the road”) refuses to resolve what it raises, which is exactly right. The song doesn’t know the answer and doesn’t pretend to.

The production sits in the register that drew comparisons to “Knock Knock”-era Smog, unhurried, slightly worn at the edges, confident enough in the songwriting to leave space around it. The bridge around the two-minute mark earns its place by shifting the emotional register without announcing the shift, which is the kind of thing that separates a good folk song from a great one.

The closing lines do the heaviest lifting. “I’m gonna miss you when I’m gone / I’m gonna miss me when I’m gone.” That last turn is the whole song in miniature.