SUMMER MUSIC

Hot Stuff of (Donna) Summer: Songs of Summers Past

A summer listicle from a Generation Joneser

“The rain, the park, and other things,” The Cowsills

For some reason, the laid-back hippie vibes of “The Rain,” scream summer to me even though it was released in the fall of 1967. Maybe it’s because the song was already familiar to me as a young child growing up in the Bronx, with all the memories of a carefree time that I associate with summer. I remember those evenings when my family, joined by my father’s cousins and their families, had barbecues along the Hudson River. There were many other families there with bursts of happy laughter resounding all around as children ran and played, picking dandelions in the late afternoon and chasing fireflies at night. Just as the song asks–was it a dream or reality?

“ABC” — Jackson 5

What a great kid song, as easy as 1–2–3 and do-re-mi! (Were the songwriters inspired by Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s “Do Re Mi” from a few years earlier?)

I first heard “ABC” at a beach not far from the Bronx — maybe Palisades Park. Or maybe it was Asbury Park. This was another family and relatives outing when I had just met my younger cousins who had arrived from Taiwan. And although they were a tad too young for me to play with, I enjoyed being their “big sister” since I was an only child.

That afternoon, we were all munching on hotdogs and cotton candy, eagerly awaiting our turn on the bumper cars with Dad when “ABC” blared out from an ice-cream truck. I found the tune catchy since I had only learned to read a 100-page book silently from cover to cover. I like to joke that Michael Jackson took me from ABC to PhD since I was still listening to his music while revising my doctoral dissertation.

“Layla” — Derek and the Dominos

Eric Clapton may have reprehensible ideas on race and vaccines, but dang what a great song from the summer of 1972. It wasn’t my particular favorite then because I probably didn’t understand the song or the relationships it described since I had just moved to tweenhood, but I never changed the station either. There’s something exciting in the bold, opening riffs that continues to fascinate me today: Eric, you still have me down on my knees!

“Waterloo” — ABBA

If ABBA made singing about losing feel victorious, it’s because they had actually won the Eurovision contest of 1974. This was my first taste of their music and little did I know that I would become a full-fledged Abbamaniac two years later. No, I couldn’t escape ABBA if I wanted to–because my fate was to become addicted at least through high school!

“Magic Man” — Heart

As a thirteen-year-old when this song was released, I was mesmerized by the vaguely psychedelic 60s sound (perhaps nostalgia for my childhood?) And which thirteen-year-old isn’t secretly seduced by the thought of a spell of love cast by a magic man with magic hands, turning a woman from a child?

“Gold Dust Woman” — Fleetwood Mac

This was never released as a single, but it chilled me one sweltering day, with its long, haunting coda. Pale shadows, black widows, graves…are the stuff dreams — or nightmares — are made of. It was simply sublime.

“Hot Stuff” — Donna Summer

It was the summer of 1979 when disco was at its height: there was Chic’s “Good Times” and that one-hit wonder Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell.” But “Hot Stuff”…this was intense summer heat, but in a good way. Who could forget Donna Summers’ powerful vocals? She truly was the divine disco diva.

“Fame” — Irene Cara

Released in the summer before I entered college (I think?) this infectious song seemed to embody all my hopes and dreams. Who doesn’t want to live forever and light up the sky like a flame? It’s a song that doesn’t grow old so long as one has starry visions for the future. And I know I was still dreaming away when putting the finishing touches on my book nearly forty years later. Yeah, baby, remember my name!

“Vacation,” — Go-Go’s

This is perhaps the quintessential summer song, released in August 1982. The song may be about pining over a boyfriend, but feels much cheerier than that, arguably because of the campy video of the Go-Go’s water-skiing in tutus. No wonder we all wanted to dance to it, regardless of the time of the year.

“Cruel Summer” — Bananarama

A similar theme to “Vacation,” but with a more brooding sound even if mostly a catchy pop tune. I have a special fondness for it, if only because I associate it with my first trip to Europe in 1983 that summer. In actuality, it was anything but a cruel summer for me!

“Fascinated” — Company B

Said to be the sound of Miami with three chicks in crazy white wigs and leather outfits — and an awesome producer, Ish Ledesma, who wrote and performed that funky “Get Off” with Foxy nearly a decade earlier in 1978. How could one resist their teasing rhymes, “love, boy” and “love toy?”

“Kokomo” — Beach Boys

Who doesn’t fantasize about Aruba, Jamaica, Bermuda, Key Largo, and Montego during the summer? ‘Nuff said.

“Another Night” — The Real McCoy

I am embarrassed to admit my fondness for this cheesy song that was a hit in the summer of 1994, right before I entered the hallowed halls of Oxford. But if you didn’t like the tune, you had to admire the accompanying postmodern European video with its montage of 1920s clips, 1930s costumes, and SF touches. (Never mind that the lead singer was only lip-syncing.)

“Made in England” — Elton John

This was not one of his more successful hits, so few outside the UK have heard of it. You’d think “Made in England” would be hotter than hell in that uber-patriotic nation, England, but it was a bit of a let-down for many after “The Circle of Life” and “Can You Feel the Love?” Perhaps many sensed its ironic undertones — with plentiful references to their rebellious colony, America — Little Richard, Elvis Presley (the boy from Tupelo), Cadillac, “Singing in the Rain” (to name a few): despite images of pubs, the queen, and multiple Union Jacks. Is he in fact entirely English? While the rousing chorus, “Ohhh…I was made in England,” the fact is that we are made “everywhere” in an increasingly smaller world. After all, this Taiwanese-parented, New Jersey-born and “Made in America” chick was raised on British literature and music from Europe and America — as the song choices here easily attest to.

“Wannabe” — Spice Girls

This was a song that delighted the tweens–and more graduate students than you would imagine in 1996. Many of us confessed to liking it…albeit in whispered tones. Maybe that’s because we found Girl Power irresistible! What does a girl really want? To get with her friends and learn to give because taking is too easy. Too bad, however, that their friendship ended less than two years later.

“Waterloo” — Bananarama

You know you’re old when groups from your college years remake hits from your preadolescent years. Or as ABBA wrote, the history books on the shelf are always repeating themselves. The lost innocence is already evident in those opening mock-rock bars that manage to sound both amusingly threatening and drowsy as we see the tipsy bridesmaids in a pile. The male dancers in their mock-Napoleonic outfits and food fights made it that much campier.

“Because We Want To” — Billie Piper

It doesn’t get any more teenybopper than this song, which picks up on the idea of the youth revolution and enlightenment: Why’d you always say what’s on your mind? There’s going to be a “revolution” which is going to “chase the dark clouds away.” Wow, the spirit of July 1789 and the French Revolution safely distilled in a pop song of under four minutes and five seconds.

“Bootylicious” — Destiny’s Child

It was the perfect song released the summer after I had officially received my doctorate and completed a year of teaching at Oxford. So I was feeling pretty fly. No one could pop my jelly! The sampling of Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen,” made it all the better, taking me back to being on the edge of eighteen.

You may wonder what happened after 2001: I simply haven’t caught up with pop. Sure, I’ve heard of Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and a few more. I’ve even heard of One Direction, which I believe has come and gone (which I learned courtesy of a much younger cousin!) However, I’m still too busy exploring music from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. I’m stuck in my private Idaho of oldies and I’m happy!

Thanks for reading. Here’s Darren Weir’s wonderful piece: