What's your 2023 summer song? (and is this even a thing anymore?) Today So Far

• Environmental news from across the Northwest.
• What is your summer song for 2023? Is this even a thing anymore?

This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for July 25, 2023.

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• Millions in wildfire funding coming to the West, projects already underway

Our partners over at Northwest News Network have recently been kicking some environmental coverage butt lately. It's been hard to keep up, so here are some highlights.

A lot of eyes are on Washington's Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River. It's currently keeping an invasive species behind its massive wall. Officials want to prevent the northern pike from traveling farther downstream. Years ago, folks thought it would be a good idea to transport these fish from out-of-state lakes to Washington's lakes for some fun fishing. The thing is — these fish are kind of monsters. They eat up just about everything, sometimes that includes ducks and bats. So there is some concern if these fish ever meet salmon swimming just a couple dams down the river.

Dams on the Snake River are an entirely different story. Conservation and fishing groups aim to sue the federal government with the goal of removing them. Their argument is that these dams contribute to warming waters, which could potentially be lethal to salmon.

Over at Oregon's Willamette River, tribes are celebrating an impressive return of lamprey upstream, the best in many years. Lamprey have been a significant food source for Indigenous peoples in the Northwest, so tribes have made an effort to protect them. They often catch and transport lamprey around dams on the river. This year, the return has been so heavy, they're at capacity for that effort. Read more here.

And up on lands across Washington and Oregon, golden paintbrush flowers have been blooming in great numbers, so great that this flower is being removed from the endangered species list. They were only found in about 10 places throughout the Northwest region in 1997. Today, they're blooming from Puget Sound to the Willamette Valley. Read more here.

Let's change the tune real quick. Has a "summer song" emerged for 2023? In our modern era of streaming music, is the summer song still a thing?

Think about that for a second, because I'm going to ask you a question down below. Soundside recently considered these questions while having an intriguing conversation with KEXP DJ Miss Ashley, SubPop's Bekah Flynn, and Seattle artist SassyBlack. A few songs and artists came up, from past years, like "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey, "This is How We Do It" by Montel Jordan, and "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman. "Fast Car" was originally released in 1988, but has experienced a surge in popularity due to Luke Combs' recent cover that is currently second on the Billboard Hot 100 list.

Billboard is where a lot of summer songs have historically been decided. Carly Rae Jepsen's epic "Call Me Maybe" was the summer song of 2012. Nelly really wanted us to know it was "Hot in Herre" in 2002. Sir Mix-A-Lot dominated 1992 with "Baby Got Back." But what about 2023? If I was going to make a Dyer prediction, summer 2023 will go down as very chill few months. Right now, Morgan Wallen's laidback country tune "Last Night" is number one. Taylor Swift has three songs in the top 10, one of which is titled "Cruel Summer," which isn't so much a toe tapper as it is a head nodder — ya know, when you just sort of nod your head to the groove of a song, as opposed to a head banger when the music rocks, or a head shaker which is the side-to-side motion you make while listening to System of a Down. That's all just to say, even the more upbeat songs in the current top 10 have a relaxed vibe. We've certainly come a long way since 2011's "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO. But these trends come in cycles. Heck, the summer song if 1989 was Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting."

I was recently asked, on the spot, about my top summer songs. Pulling songs out of the air, I included "Life Ain't Fair and the World is Mean" by Sturgill Simpson; "Born With a Tail" by the Supersuckers; "Cissy Strut" by The Meters; and the entire "In Name and Blood" album by The Murder City Devils (yeah, I cheated there). None of those are on Billboard's current top 10, or on any past hot list. But I'd like to hear from you. If we were to make a Today So Far summer mixtape, what would be the summer song you would include? Whether it is a nostagic tune or just something you like listening to, what says "summer" to you? It could be a new song, or an old song that you feel fits 2023. Email me at dyer@kuow.org.

AS SEEN ON KUOW

Ari Kasprowicz, 8, wears a t-shirt that reads "Keep Luma" while attending a gratitude gathering for the culturally modified elder cedar tree at risk of being cut down to make way for a development project, on Tuesday, July 18, 2023, in the Wedgwood neighborhood of Seattle. (Megan Farmer / KUOW)

DID YOU KNOW?

Northern pike is an interesting fish in that it is found all over the world, naturally and not-so-naturally. As the Alaska Department of Fish and Game puts it, northern pike is both native and invasive in that state, depending on where you look.

It's believed that this species evolved somewhere in Northern Europe and Northern Asia, and then made its way to North American regions from Siberia. This would have been many, many years ago, when an ice age made a land bridge possible between Alaska and Northeast Russia. If the pike from way-back-when were anything like the pike of today, they likely moved in and took over. Northern pike are known for being aggressive. They are "ambush predators" that sit and wait until striking their prey with their large sharp teeth. They steal food from each other, and have even been known to eat each other. So this fish is kind of a bully, to put it lightly.

Alaska is similar to other parts of the USA, including in Washington state. At some point, folks took pike from other lakes, and moved them to lakes where they were not native. That gave them access to new streams and rivers. That's why northern pike could be considered an invasive and native species, depending on where you're talking about. Folks have even transported this fish from northern regions to lakes in Morocco for sport fishing.

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