Bryan Ferry and Todd Terje, "Johnny and Mary"

The sun is shining. Summer is here. We are now at a far enough remove from the endless savagery of winter that you may have forgotten altogether just how truly terrible life can be. It is quite probable that, as you wander about town in comfortable clothing, appreciatively observing all the joys that warm weather summons forth, your mind has tricked you into thinking that from now on things will be okay, that the future is as bright as the skies above, that everything somehow won’t end in failure and heartbreak and doom and recrimination and regret. In which case you should not play the video that Bryan Ferry and Todd Terje have released for their cover of Robert Palmer’s “Johnny and Mary,” which came out last year. It is a song designed to break your heart, if you have a heart which has still yet to break. And on a day like today your heart is probably completely intact. So don’t listen. Let yourself believe that things will wind up okay for you. They won’t, but when the sun is shining it’s awfully easy to pretend that happiness will last, or that you deserve it to. Those of you who have a more realistic appreciation of how life inevitably turns out, however, are encourage to enjoy the elegant sorrow.