More Summer Songs for Your Listening Pleasure

Last summer, i got to thinking about summer songs and not seeing a lot of articles on AC on the subject, got the idea to do an article. I found it nearly impossible to just list 10, so I kept going. It proved to be a daunting task. So, I got the idea to group summer songs by decade, so vol. 1 dealt with the 60's, vol. II the 70's. And like the energizer bunny, I just kept going and going, with the 80's.the 90's, and even the new millenium, whatever we're calling it.

With the official start of summer just a little over a month away on the calendar and the unofficial start on Memorial Day weekend, mere days away, here are a few summer songs I overlooked in the previous articles or simply didn't have space for.

Way back in the psychedelic 60's when Timothy Leary made the statement "tune in, turn on, drop out" the Beatles must have taken his advice beginning in late 1966. Strawberry Fields Forever was released as a single in early 1967 as a double "A" side along with Penny Lane. There is now a memorial to the late John Lennon in New York's Central Park called Strawberry Field. Lennon, who wrote the song, got the name from a boy's shelter near his Liverpool boyhood home. "Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields, nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about, Strawberry Fields forever. The song conjures up visions of lazy summer days quite well.

One of the top bands of the 70's, you know, the "me decade", was Steely Dan, the duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker backed by studio musicians. The Dan defied "conventional wisdom" by touring sparingly, preferring the studio. Their top summer songs were Reelin' In The Years and Bad Sneakers. 1973's Reelin', the story of a guy whose girl dumped him for silly reasons, has a line: your everlasting summer you can see it fading fast, so you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last, but you wouldn't know a diamond if you held it in your hands, the things you think are precious I don't understand. This song contains absolutely one of the hottest guitar solos ever performed, by a studio artist named Elliott Randall

Bad Sneakers followed a couple of years later. This summer song has kind of a jazzy, tropical feel to it with a line that goes you fella, you're tearin' up the street, you wear that white tuxedo how ya' gonna beat the heat, but the most memorable line is the chorus which goes bad sneakers and a pina colada my friend, stompin' on the avenue by Radio City, with a transistor and a large sum of money to spend. To quote from the song: honey when they gonna send me home?

Also in the 70's a singer-songwriter named Cat Stevens was a regular on the radio airwaves. You may know him now as Yusuf Islam. Of Greek origin born Steven Georgiou in London, Stevens walked away from a singing career in the late 70's upon his conversion to Islam. No matter what you think of his politics or religion, the man made his mark as a musician.

Oh Very Young was released in 1974 and also appeared on the soundtrack of the 1996 Farrelly Brothers film Kingpin. Oh very young what do you leave us this time, you're only dancing on this Earth for a short time, and though your dreams may toss and turn you now, they will vanish away like your dad's best jeans, denim blue fading up to the sky, and though you want them to last forever you know they never will, you know they never will, and the patches make the goodbye harder still. A coworker of mine in one of my first jobs, flipping burgers at a Hardee's fastfood restaurant, swore the lyrics were "ovary young".

That same year. a guy named Terry Jacks had his one and only hit with Seasons In The Sun. Years later, Entertainment Tonight or one of those tabloid TV shows told the story of some imposter posing as Jacks, bilking money out of some charity. I guess the grifter figured if you're going to scam people it's easier to do it as some one-hit-wonder. Anyhow the chorus goes : we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the stars we could reach were just starfish on the beach. Of course, there is talk of dying in the song, but who cares? It's still a good summer tune.

As for the 70's how Bob Seger's Night Moves escaped my attention earlier, I couldn't tell you. Even though the single was released in the winter, when I hear this song, I'm taken back to days of summer with no school, warm nights and drive-in movies. I woke last night to the sound of thunder, how far off I sat and wondered, started hummin' a song from 1962, ain't it funny how the night moves, when you just don't seem to have as much to lose. Even though Bob Seger was far removed from his "awkward teenage blues" when he wrote this tune, you get the feeling he hadn't forgotten what it was like.

Last summer in a grocery or convenience store, don't recall which, there was a song on the sound system that sounded oh so familiar. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the name of the song or the artist. It was driving me crazy (I know, short trip) and with the song still in my head, I set out to find out about the catchy summer tune. I finally found a lyric site, don't remember which one, and was able to get enough of a line from the song to search and voila! it was a singer-songwriter from the early 80's named Steve Forbert.

The summer song was Romeo's Tune from an album called Jackrabbit Slim. It's King and Queen and we must go 'round behind the chandelier, where I won't have to speak my mind and you won't have to hear, shreds of news and afterthoughts and complicated scenes, we'll weather down behind the light and fade like magazines. Keith Urban has done a remake of the song which I haven't heard, but it has a tough act to follow as a summer song.

Also in the 80's, a band seemingly came out of nowhere, Australia's Men At Work, to make a big splash for a couple of years. The Aussies even managed to get in a jab at then President Ronald Reagan in the anti-war tune It's A Mistake. "They've gone and grabbed old Ronnie" was a reference to the then U.S. Commander In Chief. We'll not fade out too soon, not in this finest hour, whistle your favorite tune, we'll send a card and flowers saying it's a mistake. Technically, I guess it's not about summer, but this summer song was released in June of 1983 and it's message against nuclear war and all the sabre rattling is timeless.

Also in the 80's, Huey Lewis And The News were huge. They just performed at Little Rock's annual Riverfest recently and my wife and I saw them for the first time. I wasn't a huge fan back in the day, but I did like several of their tunes. The one I liked the most was released in the summer of 1984, I Want A New Drug. Of course some of the more conservative members of the community misinterpreted the meaning of the lyrics, which were about nothing but finding a way to feel good without chemicals. I want a new drug, one that won't make me sick, one that won't make me crash my car or make me feel three feet thick, one that won't make me nervous, wondering what to do, one that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you. The song was all over the radio that summer with it's infectious beat and a mix of searing guitars and horns? Later, Lewis sued Ray Parker, Jr., who allegedly plagiarized the song with his theme from Ghostbusters shortly after drug's release.

Skip to the early 90's. Tom Petty released a CD called Into The Great Wide Open. The tilte song is about an aspiring musician named Ed "who always played from the heart, he got an agent and a roadie named Bart, a rebel without a clue". Anyway, the summer song on the CD is Learning To Fly. Some swear the song is about a drug trip, kicking a drug habit or the like. Petty says it's about literally learning to pilot an airplane. In any event, it's an upbeat, guitar-driven, summer song. I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings, coming down is the hardest thing. What the song meant to me was leaving behind the troubles of youth, coming into my own as my own person and staking my claim. The song is a metaphor for life and the forks in the road that we all face at some time in our lives and making a new start. That's 10, stay tuned, there are other summer songs still to come.