The Actual Tigers, "End Of May" (2001)

I am so literal.

(Except that Blogger defeats me by being inaccessible all through the day this post was supposed to go up.)

The Actual Tigers: a Seattle-based quintet, now defunct, who released one album Gravelled and Green. It wasn't especially outstanding, but does include this pretty chamber pop number -- acoustic guitars, oboe, violin, whistling -- that owes something, melodically, to the Beatles. It even sounds like it could be sung by Paul McCartney, though it's really Tim Seely, who now performs solo. The song mourns a relationship's end. "Thinking about you is the icing on the cake/Makes me realize the fact you're gone for good/For goodness sake." "Golden haze, another morning feels like yesterday/End of May, a year is gone and I still feel this way/And when we meet again I'll ask you how you're doing/And you'll say fine and ask me how I'm doing/And then I'll lie and I'll say ordinary, it's just an ordinary day."

Same time next year: Keren Ann's "End Of May."