Now it feels a whole lot more like summer than it did a month ago when I first created my summer iPod mix--sunny, near 90, storms now and then--and here's what I heard this morning on my way into work:
"Mah-Na-Mah-Na"--Piero Umiliani--This odd little white-guy-scat ditty, which most people today probably know more as background music from Benny Hill or the Muppet Show, was actually a top 40 hit in the summer of 1969. The 45, which I owned, identified it as the theme from the movie "Sweden, Heaven or Hell," which as far as I know, never played Columbus. Wikipedia says it's a softcore porn movie. There's not much info out there about Umiliani except for this interesting web page.
"All Summer Long"--The Beach Boys--This short peppy song always makes me a little sad, partly because it's about a time later in the season when "it won't be long 'til summertime is through," and partly because it came at the end of the wonderful Beach Boys hits collection Endless Summer; the year it came out, I spent all that fall playing the double album of hits after dinnertime, and when this song came on, I knew it was almost time to stop my after-dinner goofing-off and start doing homework. I believe it was also one of the last songs played in "American Graffiti."
"Walk on the Wild Side"--Lou Reed--AM radio edited out the verse about Candy never losing her head "even when she was giving head," but who needed the single version when you had the album, Transformer, a great collection of gender-fuck songs just right for a teenage boy who was realizing that this gay thing was not just a phase. A mellow vibe just right for early summer evenings.
"That's the Way God Planned It"--Billy Preston--His first hit, and one of the few non-Beatle top 40 songs released on Apple. This was one of the first 45s I had that came in a picture sleeve. The message, about God's plan, and being exalted, and things not quite going according to plan is still a bit hazy to me, but that opening organ riff reminds me of waking up at 3 in the morning (to catch a bus for a family vacation), flipping on my transistor radio, which was right under my pillow, expecting to hear static and instead hearing this song. Wow! Radio stations were still playing music in the middle of the night! Who knew?
"Steal My Sunshine"--Len--A recent song; I have no idea what it's about, but it's fun and summery.
"Pump Up the Volume"--M/A/R/R/S--Is this my favorite dance song of all time? It certainly was my favorite during the summer of '88, just before I went back to grad school. With that first reverberating chord, I'm thrown back to sweaty nights in a gay dance club. Now that I think about it, it might have been popular in the late winter or early spring, but it was always kind of summery on the dance floor.
"Sons of Summer"--Carly Simon--Another bittersweet looking-back-with-nostalgia song that summer so often seems to inspire.
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