It all adds up to Davies' finest moment of the '70s. It's hard to picture any artist other than Ray Davies dreaming this one up - a wistful ode to sitting in the midday sun as seen through the eyes of an "out-of-work bum." He's checking out the ladies in their summer dresses, feeling sorry for the rich man "scared of losing everything he's got" and making the most of a beautiful day.
It's the final verse that makes this record such a quintessential summer-crush song, though, when Travolta lets his guard down long enough to let us know that even Sweathogs have a heart. And those he said/she said details of what happened on those long hot summer nights are brilliant. This kitschy throwback to the golden age of teen pop already felt corny and dated by the time it hit the charts in the summer of '78, especially if you were into punk by then. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, "Summer Nights" On this slow-grooving hip-hop ode to summertime, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air encourages the listener to "think of the summers of the past, adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast / Pop in my CD and let me run a rhyme / And put your car on cruise and lay back cause this is summertime." 286).ĭJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, "Summertime"
The lead-off track on 1992's "Slanted and Enchanted" album, this melancholy gem about a summer crush "eating her fingers like they're just another meal" turned up later on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 greatest songs (No. And even indie rockers need a summer anthem. This one's sadder than most, but it's Pavement, so it's cryptic, too. But there's something about equating the emergence of the sun to better days ahead that makes this song the perfect soundtrack to a summer morning. If their status as rock-and-roll bad boys hadn't been secured by then, this single should have done the trick - from the album that gave us Mick Jagger as Satan on "Sympathy for the Devil!Įasing into the ambitious second side of "Abbey Road," this George Harrison ode to the end of a "long cold lonely winter" is technically less about summer than it is about spring. Then the chorus shrugs it off with, "What can a poor boy do 'cept to sing for a rock and roll band?" Even the guitars sound like a threat. embassy and other violent clashes around the globe between government forces and anti-war protestors, with Jagger throwing his support behind a palace revolution. This is one violent summer anthem, putting a menacing lyrical spin on the Vandellas' classic "Dancing in the Street" with "Summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy." The verses respond to an anti-war rally at London's U.S.
The Rolling Stones, "Street Fighting Man" 1 on the summer of 1963's R&B charts, later to be covered by the Who, the Jam, the Supremes and Linda Ronstadt. Meanwhile, Reeves sends out "an invitation / across the nation / a chance for folks to meet," with a promise of "laughin', singin' and music swingin'." See also: "Heat Wave," the Vandellas' tribute to a love so hot that "whenever I'm with him something inside starts to burning and I'm filled with desire." The single spent four weeks at No. The sound is classic Motown, from the orchestrated intro to the cracking snare drum. This song is such the quintessential summer anthem that I couldn't help but quote the lyrics in the intro. Martha and the Vandellas, "Dancing in the Street" We can't even think of a word that rhymes." And thanks to Guitar Hero III, a whole new generation of disgruntled schoolkids have absorbed the genius of "We got no class. If school's out, you're on summer break and that's what matters, making this the perfect song to kick off any summer. As a kid, you don't exactly check a calendar to figure out when summer starts.
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