Summer Songs: #9 "I Can Help"

I first heard Billy Swan's "I Can Help" in the great Gus Van Sant movie Paranoid Park. Set in Portland, Or., the movie centers around a teenage skateboarder, Alex, who accidentally kills a security guard. That being said, this song is no downer. And it appears in the film's most cinematographically brilliant moment: when Alex is walking alone down his high school's corridor. Swan's 1974 single is full of rockabilly rhythms, sailing guitar riffs, and reassuring lyrics that are simultaneously hilarious, soothing and, for lack of a better word, cool.

Billy Swan - "I Can Help" (from I Can Help)