It’s Summertime and the Livin’ is hot!

“Sunshine. Blue skies. Please go away. My girl has found another – and gone away.
With her went my future. My life is filled with gloom. So day after day, I stay locked up in my room.”
This is by no means an admission of anything. I don’t stay locked up in my room. I was merely writing the first verse of the Temptations’ 1968 tune “I Wish It Would Rain.”
“I know to you it might sound strange,” the song goes – “but I wish it would rain.”
The Temptations were singing a song by making use of something that always cleverly enhances the likeability of many songs – the weather.
With the current “Heat Wave,” (Martha and the Vandellas – 1963) – these past few days, and with folks having to avoid the “Sunshine” (Jonathan Edwards – 1971), people are scrambling to keep cool, even “In the Heat of the Night,” (Ray Charles – 1967). Otherwise, everybody will suffer from a sad case of “The Summertime Blues,” (Eddie Cochran – 1958).
It’s just that way, “In the Summertime,” (Mungo Jerry – 1970).
We should be excited to have some “Hot Fun in the Summertime” (Sly and the Family Stone – 1969) so that we can enjoy our “Summer Nights” like Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta did in their 1978 movie Grease.
Way back in 1966, The Lovin’ Spoonful had their own biggest hit – “Summer in the City,” singing the words, “Hot town, summer in the city. Back of my neck gettin’ dirty and gritty.”
Yet, the most enduring use of summer in song seems to be one written for the 1935 George Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess.
“Summertime and the livin’ is easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high,” go the lyrics which have been sung by dozens of singers – most notably Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Janis Joplin, and my personal favorite – Billy Stewart.
For all of the summer-related songs, there are also rain-related ones like that 1968 Temptations tune.
For instance, Creedence Clearwater Revival had their 1970 hit, “Who’ll Stop the Rain.”
Back in 1959, it was Ray Charles who told his audiences that he was gonna love somebody, “Come Rain or Come Shine.”
In 1973, Albert Hammond was a one-hit-wonder, whose one-hit was the mereologically false – “It Never Rains in Southern California.”
I’ve lived in California – twice. I can assure you it does rain there.
Singer Brook Benton would tell you it rains everywhere.
In 1970, Benton was down south lamenting the fact that it was a “Rainy Night in Georgia. A rainy night in Georgia. Lord, I believe it’s rainin’ all over the world.”
That same year, James Taylor sang the haunting tune “Fire and Rain,” about his battles with drug abuse, and his recurrent psychiatric problems.
More uplifting, though, was Neil Sedaka’s 1974 “Laughter in the Rain.”
It seems as if the early 1970s was a wonderful time to stick a weather-related theme into any popular song.
The Rhythm & Blues group Love Unlimited sang “Walkin’ in the Rain with the One I Love” in 1972 – with the sound of falling rain throughout.
The following year, legendary songstress Tina Turner sang about her aversion to rain with “I Can’t Stand the Rain.”
Ms. Turner was in no mood to enjoy rain the way that 1960s group The Cascades did when they sang “Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain.”
Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” for a movie.
As bleak as that tune may seem, it was still uplifting since it was used as a theme song for the film “Butch Cassiday and the Sundance Kid.”
That brings us back to songs where grown men are afraid to go outside unless it rains – because somebody might spot them crying after their wife or girlfriend departed.
In 1972, the R&B group The Dramatics topped The Temptations, when they sang “It may sound crazy, but I Wanna go Outside in the Rain.”
Such a waste of rainwater, don’t you think?
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.