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Bob Vickery of Philadelphia cited classics in this category, including “Summertime” from “Porgy and Bess,” The Drifters’ “Under the Boardwalk” and Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind.”
Bob Entwistle of Madison, Wis., wrote: “Other than Christmas songs, how many good songs about winter are there? I’m thinking of Merle Haggard’s ‘If We Make It Through December’ and Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter.’ They don’t really celebrate the season, do they?”
But many summer songs do. Just check out the Beach Boys. Or the song “Magic,” by the Cars. Pamela Andrada of Santa Monica, Calif., recalled its opening lines: “Summer, it turns me upside down/Summer, summer, summer, it’s like a merry-go-round.”
Sally Haynes of Sanibel, Fla., noted that many summery songs have a sunny agenda, “enabling each one of us to create a youth of soaking up the sun, riding waves and falling in love, forever transforming the reality of our summers of church camp, reading lists and marching band practice. Grandma never gets run over by a reindeer in the summer, because she’s cruising in her little deuce coupe, eternally young with her sun-drenched blond locks blowing in the breeze behind her.”
A favorite of mine that I seldom see mentioned in summer-song roundups is The Sundays’ “Summertime,” released in 1997 and of no relation to the “Porgy” classic. Take a listen. Both musically and lyrically, its chorus is buoyancy itself:
And it’s you and me in the summertimeWe’ll be hand-in-hand down in the parkWith a squeeze and a sigh and that twinkle in your eyeAnd all the sunshine banishes the dark
Interestingly, many songs with titles that seem to position them as summery fare have lyrics and meanings much more complicated than that. Don Henley’s superb “The Boys of Summer” and Sheryl Crow’s “Soak Up the Sun” come to mind.
Because I’m not a big country music fan, I wasn’t aware of Brad Paisley’s delightfully naughty, mischievous conversion of summertime nuisance into summertime opportunity in the song “Ticks,” which Robert Smith of Big Canoe, Ga., brought to my attention. I’ll leave you with this stretch of its lyrics:
I’d like to see you out in the moonlightI’d like to kiss you way back in the sticksI’d like to walk you through a field of wildflowersAnd I’d like to check you for ticks.
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