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Welcome to Weird Dad Fall

Look, I just don't get into football season. Or baseball season. Theater season is too expensive, TV seasons lost their cachet when everything started streaming, and Hot Girl Summer is sadly—some would say mercifully—not for me.

But I do think the hot summer girls are onto something, as are the Brat Summer girls. And if a schlubby, midwestern dad like Tim Walz gets to participate in that then I say good on 'im (I don't actually say that; "good on 'im" is one of the Britishisms that hasn't quite crept its way into my vernacular). I do think it's good, though, to celebrate an entire season now and then. That might seem like overkill but my God, how do you people manage to cram the enjoyment of Halloween and Christmas into single months? Even before I had kids I felt like I never had time for that stuff. But if I can stretch it out in an entire season, a whole quarter of the year...

Anyway, thoughts like those were the genesis of Weird Dad Fall, an excuse I came up with a couple of years ago to put my precious free time to better use. Weird Dad Fall is definitely a thing, even if nobody else celebrates it, and having elementary school-aged kids gives me a good excuse to pull out all the stuff I did as a weird kid. Obviously, we're gonna drag out the microscope, make some slime with Elmer's Glue and laundry starch, and shrink the apple heads I never got around to when I was nine.

Now, if this claptrap actually had an audience then I'm sure the naysayers would be pointing out that fall doesn't even start until the 22nd, but my meteorologist friend Matt (hi Matt! (oh, wait, he doesn't even know about this website.)) would confidently tell you that meteorological fall started on September first. And anyway, it's the harvest moon tonight, which doesn't particularly mean anything to me other than being the title of several different songs, at least one of which I enjoy.

Yeah, you probably think I'm talking about the Neil Young song, and sure, it's a justifiably iconic piece of classic rock, but the "Harvest Moon" I really like is the one by Blue Öyster Cult.

I've been told that my fondness for BÖC is perplexing when contextualized alongside my other musical obsessions, and I appreciate that. They don't exhibit They Might Be Giants' self-deprecating eclecticism or Frank Zappa's range and sardonic wit or the it's-almost-cyberpunk-if-you-squint-at-itness of Information Society, and as my sister-in-law has pointed out, I'm "not sixty. Or a pothead." Still, BÖC brings something to the table that I like (okay, it's their regular allusions to gothic horror literature (hello, H.P. Lovecraft!) and the fact that their songs were frequently penned by the likes of Patti Smith, Michael Moorcock, and John Shirley. Pretty good melodies and virtuoso instrumentalists don't hurt, either.

Blue Öyster Cult is still touring, but at some point they became a band whose every release is heralded as a comeback album. The unfortunate reality of that is simply that they didn't take the hint when the music industry moved on from what they were doing. That's great for their fans because the band has continued to evolve in its own direction, but it means that every once in a while I read an interview where one of them candidly states, "We didn't think we'd do another album, but the label approached us with a good offer. I think the fans will like it, and (COVID notwithstanding) we plan to hit all the state fairs this summer." That's the thing about good bands: they really do either burn out or fade away, and the fade probably seems especially unglamorous when you used to pack arenas every night. They're still at it, though, and I say good on 'im.

Anyway, back to "Harvest Moon."

If there was any justice in the world (read: market for this kind of music in 1998) "Harvest Moon" would've been the first—and biggest—single from their first comeback album, Heaven Forbid, which came out a decade after 1988's Imaginos (which might also be called a comeback, or at least an annoying contractual obligation). One day we might talk about the sprawling, beautiful mess that is Imaginos, but in the meantime, Heaven Forbid takes a token stab at blending the band's bluesy, psychedelic roots with something like the previous decade's hard rock and slick, pop metal. I don't love the whole album, but the best songs are transcendently good and hold their own against the entire rest of their catalog. My favorites are "X-Ray Eyes" (inspired by the Roger Corman film The Man with the X-Ray Eyes), "Harvest Moon" (which we'll get to in a moment), and "Real World" in which a band most famous for songs about vampires, aliens, and monsters, declares that "the real world is bizarre enough for me." It was a stunning proclamation, in its way, and the best songs on their next album, Curse of the Hidden Mirror would be about utterly mundane topics (well, okay, "The Old Gods Return" is the most Lovecraftian thing they ever recorded, but "Pocket" is literally about all the nothing that happens in a suburb).

"Harvest Moon" is tailor-made for this time of year, and the lyrics are ruminations on the dying of the light, the turning of the weather, and the long winter ahead. They're also specific, painting a grim picture of a rural locale in New England—Lovecraft country. Twentyish years ago I read a review of the album that claimed the song was about a "cursed Mexican town," and that phrase lives rent-free in my head because it's so obviously incorrect. Doesn't matter; it's a great song, even if the lyrics are a little scattered. I know the phrase "I feel a presence here" suggests something ominous and supernatural, but the horror of the last verse is a hard left turn from the pastoral quality of the first two verses (basically, "life is hard, especially on a farm").

Anyway, here's a live performance of the song: