You Are Hereby Summoned (Surfin' in the Jury Pool) (2026)

The envelope looks like nothing. A window, an address block, a form folded to fit behind the plastic. Then you open it, and the first line is not a request: YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED TO APPEAR FOR JURY SERVICE. 1 Under it sit a room number, a date, a time, and a juror number that was assigned to you without anyone asking.

This song hears that envelope and throws a beach party. It is 1960s California surf rock at 152 BPM: spring-reverb guitar carrying the melody, tom-toms driving the beat, upright bass, a Farfisa organ, handclaps, and a sunny male lead with four-part harmonies behind him. The whole thing sounds like it is happening on a folding table in 1963. Nobody in the band cracks a smile. They are singing a court document, and they mean every word of it.

The paperwork turns out to be full of hooks. The first is the fine. Fail to comply with the summons and it is a contempt action, punishable by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand. 1 The second is the roll call that decides whether you are even allowed in the room: a citizen, at least eighteen, a year in the district, able to read and write and understand and speak the English language, and never convicted of a felony unless your civil rights have been restored. 2 The band answers each question like a backing chorus at a talent show.

Then the chorus takes the phrase the courts use for the people waiting to be picked — the jury pool — and surfs it all the way to the jury box. 3 Being summoned does not mean you will serve. It means you are in the water.

The middle of the song is a list of everything you cannot bring or do. No shorts, no tank tops, no halter tops, no flip-flops, no hats, no glass containers, no knitting needles, no compact mirrors. 1 Once you are seated, the rules get stranger and better: do not talk about the case, do not read about it, do not watch anything that might mention it, and do not research it on your own — the handbook is specific that this includes consulting a dictionary. 4 Jurors get fifty dollars a day, sixty after ten days if the presiding judge orders it, plus transportation and, in some courts, parking. 5

And then the song stops joking, because the handbook does. It says jurors become a part of the court itself. It says they must not favor the rich or the poor. It says it would be dishonest for a judge to decide a case by tossing a coin, and just as dishonest for a juror to do so. 4

The bridge is one voice with one guitar, and it is the oath itself: Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will well and truly try the issues between the State and the defendant and render a true verdict according to the law and the evidence, so help you God? 6 The band comes back for the last chorus with the sentence one Ohio court printed at the top of its summons: jury service is not voluntary, but a civic obligation imposed upon all citizens by statute — and as a juror, you become an officer of the Court. 7

Play it on the train downtown at 7:40 in the morning with the summons folded in your pocket. Play it in the jury assembly room, over the wifi they thoughtfully provide. Play it the night before, after five, while a recorded message tells you whether you have to come in at all.