If I Had Known by Greg Brown, from a compilation titled If I Had Known – Essential Recordings, 1980-1996
I first heard the song last summer, playing on the PA before my performance at Neverdun Farm in Maine. I bought it right away. It came up in my shuffle-stream yesterday while I was driving through the farmlands of Pennsylvania. I listened to it three times in a row, and I was in tears by the end of the second play.
I don’t think there is a man alive who hadn’t had the experience that is summed up in the perfect line, “Summer was invented for her to wear that dress.”