(Ray Brandes ushers in the season with a call for signature songs.)
“In summer, the song sings itself.”
— William Carlos Williams
“School’s out for summer!”
— Alice Cooper
Some of the greatest songs in the rock-‘n’-roll era were released in June, July and August. A great summer song doesn’t necessarily have to be about summer itself, but rather capture the quintessence of the season: that feeling of long, lazy sunburned days and humid nights spent making love to the sounds of crickets.
The summer of 1965 alone gave us the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” the Beatles’ “Help,” Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” and Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street,” songs that are quite different in theme but are bursting with the exuberance of the sunny season.
The sounds of Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” The Hughes Corporation’s “Rock the Boat,” The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me Baby,” and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge,” for example, each summon a distinct set of memories from a different summer vantage point.
What are your favorite summer songs, and what memories do they recall for you?
— Ray Brandes
More posts by Ray Brandes:
- No Particular Place to Go: Four-wheeled memories
- Everybody Is a Star: The ideal supergroup
- Radio days
- “Puberty Principle”: First sonic crushes
- Helter Skelter: Tate-LaBianca at 40
- Guess who’s coming to dinner?
- My favorite things: What are you listening to?
- Footloose: Rockin’ the ’80s
- “I don’t get it”
- Me and my monkey: Guilty pleasures
- Man-eaters and mad crushes
- Our Lady of Chula Vista
- You Never Give Me Your Money: IOUs and the Che Underground
philadelphia freedom = driving to sf with my mom in the summer of 76 in our tan celica. heading up the grapevine with no a/c, windows down, air bustling in the windows, us singing top voice, along with elton. that song was everywhere that summer… bicentennial and all.
hotter than july = right before i turned 12 this song was my very favorite. i always loved stevie wonder… but makes me think of hanging out with renee, running around playing kick the can until the street lights came on and staying up all night talking.
somersault by zero 7= a few years ago when i was finishing up my graduate work and i was half in love with a man i knew from years before. he was the type to share his last jellybean. it didn’t work out, but that song reminds me of a happy time…
car by built to spill= living in eugene, riding bikes and drinking mcmenamins beer. going to basement shows where modest mouse, members of screaming trees, built to spill, all those bands played, and we were at the center of an era in music… it was wonderful. reminded me of our time in san diego. all that brilliance, all that creativity, all that filial regard all in one place. the northwest in the early 90’s was a good place to be.
home by spearhead= lullaby for henry the late summer and fall of his first year. beautiful song…
If you are hungry I will
bake some bread for you
If you are worried I will
hold your head for you
If you can’t sleep at night I will
screen your dreams for you
And if you feel uptight I will
make everything alright for you.
If the key don’t work / knock on the door
If the key don’t work / knock on the door
no matter how far away you seem I am always
here at home
(i keep saying “filial” when i mean to say familial…)
Mademoiselle Mabry. Filles de Kilimanjaro. Miles Davis.
“Miss You” was a great summer tune
gawd dern stones kicking up rocks in
a disco way…..
The first album by Love was a huge part of my soundtrack for Summer ’82. Amazing amount of light in the record.
Pretty much anything by the Beachboys. The harmonies sound like glorious sunshine minus the need for SPF.
The Pet Sounds instrumental “Let’s Go Away for Awhile” is a perfect soundtrack for a Summer sunset.
Having grown up hearing certain FM anthems played ad nauseum it feels rather Manchurian Candidate to involuntarily hear dentist office favorites “blowing through the jasmine in my mind” at the mere mention of Summer, but braincells have been devoted to maintaining imprints of Seals, Crofts and similar ilk…
The call of mourning doves at 7am and it’s already getting really warm..
‘Alligator lizards in the air..’
Cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy …
Even tho it saw single release months earlier, Light My Fire b/w Crystal Ship seemed to dominate the airwaves in the late spring/early summer of ’67.
Every time you turned on the radio, Light My Fire was either playing or -- wait 30 seconds -- it will be.
And Crystal Ship will always evoke still, deep summer evenings gathered in a lightsout livingroom, records spinning on a cheap portable, lights across Mission Bay, nightblooming jasmine and not having a single, solitary care in the world.
joe, that was rich in visual… and is the second time i have heard mention of night blooming jasmine this week. mmm…
There is no summer song for me, but a summer album. Early 70’s, 8 track, Ford wagon heading east to New York and the Moody Blues ‘On The Threshold of a Dream’ held sway to us all or at least me anyway… We had other music but that one album never leaves me.
Here’s Gary Heffern, still unable to comment from home:
“mungo jerry’s in the summertime…lovin spoonfull.summer in the city are the obvious ones hell, the whole album the wild the innocent & the E Street shuffle (bruce again), paul simons was a sunny day…tom waits old 55 (well even that whole 2nd eagles album was pretty f’in good if you ask me!) marshall tucker bands first album as well…and of course van morrison’s gloria, and the leaves hey joe.—ok off to school! heff”
Late 70’s probably 79.
Riding the 27 bus from the Burbs to Pacific Beach was an every weekend thing.
Get the Knack
Good Girls Don’t, My Sharona……….
Funny because I’m in SD right now and went to PB yesterday and thought of those summer days on the bus.
When I arrived in SD, 1976, I bought an old Nova. It had a factory installed 8-track player and in the glove box were 2 tapes. The Who, “Who’s Next”, and “The Worst of Jefferson Airplane”.
The songs on these tapes always remind me of summer because I drove around, exploring all the beaches, OB, La Jolla, PB, Coronado, etc…listening ….over and over.
ava -- and just a few doors down, a neighbor had put in two dozen gardenias out front.
Days it was citrus, sweet peas, freesias, white ginger, carnation and stock. OK -- enough summer scents, back to sounds ;^)
Bluebird -- The Buffalo Springfield. Every day, two weeks straight,
at exactly the same time on AM radio during the drive home from summer school.
John Mayall -- The Turning Point
Hot time summer in the city, back of my neck feeling dirty and gritty cool cat looking for a kitty doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city
Lou Damian wants us Lou…come on man. The only question is what do we do for security….our posse is dead!!!!
chris mathis will hold down the fort!
if not i know these thirty something
guys called diamond dogs that can
do the job
now what would a summer be like
without a couple of injections???
A lot of people would rather NOT have The Injections…but that’s half the fun! LOL!
It won’t be this summer, but it WILL be. And we do need some protection…prefer Black Panthers like back in the old days. Must protect Lou Skum at all cost…a national treasure.
I don’t have a favorite song, but this discussion reminded me of a glorious Fourth of July once, when my brother and I went out to Windansea beach to body surf. The weather was warm, and on this particular day there were a freakish amount of good body surfing waves popping everywhere and almost continuously. A band had set up on a concrete extension of the cliffs there, right above the water. They played Stones, Beatles, Beach Boys and that sort of thing. When the waves curved up behind you, they created a natural band shell kind of phenomenon where the volume increased and the sound became more clear and focused.
paul, that is beautiful. the images of sound are inspiring.
There aint no cure for the summertime blues
Uneasy Rider was last sunday’s first summer day at the beach song for Sailor and I,we built a mexican style pyramid in front of the lifeguard tower in OB and shared a soda pop and a cappucino at the drive thru coffee stand on voltaire.I vaguely remember that song from the early 70’s when I was a little younger than he is now.Some how got that song from looking at Tom’s blog,even though it wasn’t on there,love the Wayne Cochran though,that made it on the mix too.”If you can’t let your hair down,then take it off!”
Paul,
Was the band playing at Marine Street?
Me and my brothers were at Windansea beach on the forth many many years ago. We walked over to Marine Street and there was a band playing on that concrete spot and kegs of beer.
The 3 of us made that walk this past weekend when I was in SD and we had a great discussion about that day and how it was so long ago.
Pretty cool if you were there body surfing at the same time.
Be good
It’s possible Mark. That would be cool. The surf makes me think it was Windansea, in that it didn’t womp you onto the sand and broken shells.
Marine Street has the little cement area, can’t think of anything like that at Windansea. The 4th when the band was playing it was breaking a little further out and sweet.
That’s amazing. This may have been before I met you and the cast of characters here. At any rate that’s very cool. I don’t even remember the kegs. I guess I was having too much fun.
Oh, and “Tell Me Something Good” by Rufus and Chaka Khan. I first heard it as a kid coming out of a radio by the swimming pool at an east San Diego county campground. It was a hot day. I got a little electric shock, the power cord to the radio was running through a little bit of standing water by the side of the pool. Some girls were sunning themselves. I had some new emotions.
Looks like someone found Platform 9 3/4.
“The Beach” by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. …