17 Songs for Summer

Grantchester Meadows” (Pink Floyd)
Opening with one minute of chirping morning skylarks and buzzing flies, Roger Waters perfectly sets this idyllic scene with his acoustic guitar, pastoral lyrics, quiet singing, and, around the 4-minute mark, the sound effects of a flowing stream and flying geese panning across the stereo.

“Misty morning whisperings and gentle stirring sounds
Belie the deathly silence that lay all around….
See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing through the water
And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees
Laughing as it passes through the endless summer making for the sea
In the lazy water meadow, I lay me down
All around me golden sun flakes settle on the ground
Basking in the sunshine of a bygone afternoon
Bringing sounds of yesterday into this city room”

“Two Weeks Last Summer” (Sandy Denny and the Strawbs)
Before her fame as the lead singer of Fairport Convention and her solo career, Sandy Denny sang with The Strawbs on their first album recorded during July 1967. Dave Cousins wrote the poetic lyrics and plays the bewitching, transfixing 12-string acoustic melody that resonates with Sandy Denny’s spellbinding vocals.

“Summer days I’ll float downstream
Wondering where the day has been
Boats that sail away at night

Come the day have sailed far out of sight
Reminiscing summer walks
Empty glances, moonlit talks
Passing fancies fly away
Empty shadows on a sunlit bay”

“Summer Wine” (Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood)
Nancy Sinatra was 11 years younger than Lee Hazlewood. Nancy Sinatra was, like her father, performing lounge tunes and covers of famous musicians (although they were swingin’ ‘60s versions), while Lee Hazlewood had already begun recording his cinematic, experimental country/folk albums before collaborating with Nancy Sinatra. Nancy Sinatra was in her 20s and Lee Hazlewood was in his 30s when they recorded the baroque pop, dreamlike “Some Velvet Morning” and “Summer Wine”. Her soprano and his baritone complement each other in this track which is a tale of a psychedelic cowboy seduced by a succubus who steals from him and the hangover on the morning after: a narrative specialty of Lee Hazlewood who wrote the song.

“Bummer in the Summer” (Love)
Arthur Lee’s baroque pop masterpiece Forever Changes is one of the greatest records of the 1960s. Recorded in August 1967, the penultimate track on the album, “Bummer in the Summer” is the briefest (barely over 2 minutes) and yet it has a driving energy: acoustic folk, barreling piano, a Bo Diddley beat breakdown, twanging country rock guitar.

“Hot Summer Day” (It’s A Beautiful Day)
Released in June 1969, the eponymous debut album by San Francisco hippies It’s A Beautiful Day feels like a hallucinogenic, heat haze mirage: the duetting, impassioned vocals of David LaFlamme and Linda LaFlamme, wah-wah guitar, warbling organ, whirling violin, and wistful harmonica.

“Blue Sky” (The Allman Brothers Band)
A laidback and uplifting southern rock jam by guitarist Dickey Betts (a love song written for his Canadian Native American girlfriend), this track is meant to be listened to while drinking cold beers on a sunny summer Sunday afternoon sitting in your backyard or driving down the open road with the windows rolled down.

“Summertime Rolls” (Jane’s Addiction)
Although Jane’s Addiction is best known for Perry Farrell’s Lollapalooza, their heroin, their surfing, and their alt-metal/alt-rock, the band also had a completely different side to their music, as exemplified in sumptuous songs such as “Summertime Rolls”. Eric Avery’s earthy bass and Dave Navarro’s stoned guitar set the scene as Perry Farrell sings lyrics about his girlfriend and the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and touches of the season.

“It’s Summertime” (Flaming Lips)

A spacey, symphonic song that sounds like animated Disney on LSD, featuring Dave Fridmann’s larger-than-life production that includes alien birds, Steven Drozd’s eccentric electronics and pattering percussion, and singer Wayne Coyne’s thoughts on the “self-reflected inner sadness” that can happen during the boredom, ennui, and malaise of summer.

“Summer’s Game” (Jacco Gardner)
Jacco Gardner’s baroque pop, cinematic production (harpsichord, Mellotron) and his childlike, delicate vocals on his debut record Cabinet of Curiosities are reminiscent of Syd Barrett and other 1960s whimsical psychedelia. “Summer’s Game” is an acid flashback: blurry, evanescent, and gossamer.

“California Finally” (La Luz)
La Luz relocated from rainy Seattle to sunny Los Angeles. Their newfound feeling of liberation courses through all of the tracks on their energizing and intoxicating record Floating Features. Their girl group vocal harmonies, groovy rhythm section (Lena Simon on bass and Marian Li-Pino on drums), retro organ (Alice Sandahl), and surf rock guitar (Shana Cleveland) are the perfect soundtrack for endless summers and infinite highways.

“Tangerine” (Led Zeppelin)
A song about lost love written by Jimmy Page (“measuring a summer’s day, I only find it slips away to grey, the hours, they bring me pain) and sung, of course, by Robert Plant, this track was created during the band’s most imaginative time during their stay at Bron-Yr-Aur in the wilderness of Wales. John Paul Jones on mandolin and Jimmy Page on 6- and 12-string acoustic, Gibson Les Paul electric, and pedal steel create a country/folk rock song that is a “thousand years” better than their macho blues bombast on LZ I & II.

“Loving Cup” (The Rolling Stones)

Mick Jagger’s song about being a dirty misfit (“I’m the plowman in the valley with a face full of mud”, “I’m nitty gritty and my shirt’s all torn”), a rural romantic (“I’m the man who walks the hillside in the sweet summer sun, I’m the man that brings you roses when you ain’t got none”), and getting drunk (“what a beautiful buzz”) is another sweaty track from Exile On Main Street that is fun for drinking beers and rollicking road trips with Keith Richards on backing vocals and guitar, Mick Taylor on guitar, Bill Wyman on bass, Charlie Watts on drums, Nicky Hopkins on piano, Bobby Keys on saxophone, and Jim Price on trumpet.

“Feel the Wind Blow” (Brainticket)

This song is a beautiful June afternoon with cumulus clouds drifting across the skies while you walk around outside. It is a blissed-out, drifting, ethereal hidden gem of psychedelic folk that will certainly clear your stressed mind and take you to a more magical, peaceful place.

“Wandering on a summer’s day
Listen to the trees
Whispering a chant, they sway
Bowing to the breeze
Found a sea of green wheat field
Closing scars of agony unsealed
Flying high and free”

“Fat Old Sun” (Pink Floyd)

Another underrated track from Floyd’s pastoral period (recorded during the summer of 1970), this achingly beautiful song perfectly paints the picture of a summer Sunday sunset. Opening with the chiming of church bells, the song slowly layers acoustic guitar and poignant pedal steel over Richard Wright’s Farfisa and Hammond organs and David Gilmour’s poetic lyrics and soothing vocals. At the 2:22 mark, children’s voices murmur in the background. Gilmour’s greatest guitar solo, soaring and spectacular, starts at 3:20 and elevates the song to its epic finale.

“Summer evening birds are calling
Summer Sunday, and a year
The sound of music in my ears
Distant bells
New-mown grass smells so sweet
By the river, holding hands
Roll me up and lay me down
And if you see, don’t make a sound
Pick your feet up off the ground
And if you hear, as the warm night falls
A silver sound from a tongue so strange
Sing to me
Children’s laughter in my ears
The last sunlight disappears”

“Beechwood Park” (The Zombies)

Recorded during the summer of 1967, this delicate, nostalgic song is the perfect soundtrack for the Summer of Love. Atmospheric organ from Rod Argent, poetic lyrics from bassist Chris White, and wistful, yearning vocals from singer Colin Blunstone transport you to a stroll with your lover through a deep green, misty, rainy summer twilight.

“Do you remember summer days
Just after summer rain?
When all the air was damp and warm
In the green of country lanes

And the breeze would touch your hair
Kiss your face and make you care
About your world, your summer world
And we would count the evening stars
As the day grew dark in Beechwood Park
All roads in my mind take me back in my mind
And I can’t forget you, won’t forget you,
Won’t forget those days in Beechwood Park”

“Long Hot Summer Night” (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)

Recorded during summer 1968, this track from Electric Ladyland features boogie piano from Al Kooper, fluid rhythms from bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, and fiery, groovy guitar from Hendrix. His colorful, kaleidoscopic lyrics chronicle an after hours state of mind.

“Danse Fambeaux” (Dr. John, the Night Tripper)

The swirling center altarpiece and talisman in the one-of-a-kind psychedelic masterpiece Gris-Gris. This snake dance, stumbling through the swamps, torchlit voodoo ritual is the perfect soundtrack for a hot, humid, late summer night under a full moon: bird calls, ceremonial bells, creeping mandolin, gritty guitar, Dr. John’s froggy, rasping singing, tribal percussion, and the chanting incantations of the mesmerizing, mysterious, sinister background vocalists who will spook you.

by Mark Lager