Last week we turned the page on the calendar with eager fingers. Fall has always been our favorite season, and September promised changing leaves and the first hints of a drop in the mercury, the air crisp with possibility. Mother Nature, however, does not seem to have gotten the memo. We went to sleep with visions of boots and hot cider dancing in our heads, and awoke to 90-degree heat and humidity thick as molasses. This is particularly cruel in New York, where fall smells of Nora Ephron movies and summer stinks of garbage heaps and too many humans packed into a subway car. We know we’ll miss the heat once the polar winter descends, but right now we’d give anything to swap sweater weather for these sweatier climes.

But we’re optimists here at Zelda & Scout, or at least we try to be (Zelda usually being more successful than Scout on that count). And so, thinking of the sleet to come, we’re trying to embrace the last sultry days of Indian summer while they last. This playlist is our salute to a summer that was slow to creep in and seems just as reluctant to creep out. Summer being a nostalgic season, we’ve gone old school, sticking to the pre-1975 era of horns and honky tonks. From the jazzy to the jaunty, “Paper Moon” to Motown, these tracks put us in mind of rooftop sunsets and drinks on fire escapes. There are standards from Billie Holiday and Peggy Lee, windows-down classics from Simon & Garfunkel and Tina Turner, and some old-fashioned boogies from Van Morrison and King Harvest. Despite the heat, it’ll be alright. And we know we’ll miss our sandals when they’re gone.

As always, you can listen along here, or we’re on YouTube and Spotify.