← Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
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- [00:00]
Janda
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- [01:16]
Christian Lane
Welcome to the behind the Song podcast.
- [01:19]
Janda
Taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda. I'm Janda, joined today for this bonus episode of the behind the Song podcast by Christian Lane to talk about classic rock and summertime songs. Hello, Christian. So this isn't a ranking of best or worst or whatever. It's just a handful of great, essential, I would say classic rock songs about summer since we're heading into the season. Right?
- [01:50]
Christian Lane
Yeah. You know, we don't do rankings here per se. We don't like that. But we like to acknowledge tasty songs. That's kind of what we're doing, summer songs.
- [01:59]
Janda
So who starts first, me or you?
- [02:01]
Christian Lane
I'll start. I'll go with an obvious one. Mungo Jerry in the summertime in the summertime when the weather is hot, you can stretch right up and touch. There's a couple ways I'm looking at these. It both mentions summer and it sounds like summer. It reminds me of the little straw boater hats and men with sleeve ties. And it just reminds me of sort of a 20s summertime. It's got a little bit of a calypso feel. It's taken in all these different influences and making something truly unique. The fellow who wrote it was a guy named Ray Dorset.
- [02:40]
Janda
Yep.
- [02:41]
Christian Lane
He said his family would go to a place called Hailing island in Hampshire every summer. It was a place that he said when it wasn't raining, you literally felt like you could touch the sky. He's picturing his boyhood summers, which makes sense to me. I just have to point out he says, have a drink, have a drive. And I always thought that's maybe not the best advice. He pointed out that it was before saying drink was ubiquitous to mean alcohol. He's picturing like iced tea and a milkshake and kind of taking a drive around the lake. Perfectly encapsulates that to me.
- [03:20]
Janda
I'm glad that you pointed out the whole drinking and driving thing. He was coming at it from the perspective of being a kid in his summertime sort of vacation with his family. And you said Hampshire. You mean Hampshire, England. Right. Because Mungo Jerry's an English band. It's a ragtime, isn't it?
- [03:39]
Christian Lane
Ragtime, yeah, yeah.
- [03:41]
Janda
And I mean, that's probably why it gives it that really old timey feel. That is the highest selling single of any British band ever.
- [03:51]
Christian Lane
It's like 30 million.
- [03:52]
Janda
It's like 30 million copy. That means they surpass the Beatles, I always thought.
- [03:57]
Christian Lane
Interesting. He says you can do a ton or do a ton in 25. Okay, I, I, I'm not sure, I'm not sure what he's talking about, but I like it. I that 125 miles an hour. I don't, I don't know. I don't know anybody knows. Drop us a line. So that's, yeah, that's my first pick, if you will, for summer songs in the Summertime.
- [04:19]
Janda
And I'm glad we got that one out of the way because I think that this little list of summertime songs would be remiss without it. So thanks for kicking us off with that. I am going to go into a song that I think is 100% essential for summertime listening when it comes to classic rock. And that is Journey's Stone in Love from the Escape album. I love this song.
- [04:43]
Christian Lane
Break it down.
- [04:44]
Janda
Okay, so a. Steve Perry's vocal on this is amazing.
- [04:53]
Christian Lane
Stone in Love.
- [04:56]
Janda
The song itself, it's just all about summer love and recalling the golden times of your youth, you know, with your boyfriend, girlfriend. The lyrics are so perfect. It's in the heat with a blue jean girl Burn in love comes once in a lifetime. And then he soars into the chorus. Of course, we're talking about Steve Perry singing here. Those summer nights are calling I can't help myself I'm Stone in Love. Just when that song comes on, it feels like, all right, let's roll the windows down. Let's hop on Lakeshore Drive, let's wave our arms out the window, and let's see what we can get into with this beautiful, perfect summer day with this person that I love. So it checks all those boxes. And I think this is interesting, a little tidbit about Stone in Love by Journey. The term stone in love is actually a British saying. When you say I'm stone in love, it gives it emphasis. The word stone there is to give it that extra sort of underlining it. I am very, very, very in love. The other interesting thing about this song is that the title shares a title with a Philly soul band, the Stylistics, who had a song called I'm Stone in Love with youh. And of course, Steve Perry is a major Motown. Philly soul loves all that stuff. Sam Cooke, one of his idols, you know, that kind of thing. And he was a co writer on this song. He must have loved singing it. He must have loved the sort of reference back to the Stylistics in the title. And for my money, you know, when. When I hear Stone In Love by Journey, I crank it up. I feel like, yes, let's go. The sun is out. You know, I got my cutoffs on. Let's get into something. You know, it makes me feel good when I hear it.
- [06:51]
Christian Lane
Yeah, you're right. When he soars and hits that chorus. Yeah. Windows down, volume up. Good one. All right, so now I'm gonna go with one. To me, this just feels like summer. There's no explicit reference about summer in it, but I'm gonna go with take the money and run. Go on, take the money and run. For some reason, for me, this can only be in the. You know, we've got Billy Joe and Bobby Sue. We all know the story. They're bored, they're stoned. It sounds to me like they're on summer vacation. And the first couple days were great. Getting stoned and watching tv. And now, like, what are we gonna do? And we're broke and go rob a castle.
- [07:39]
Janda
Why not?
- [07:40]
Christian Lane
Why not? As you do. Maybe it's heading down to El Paso. It's, you know, you picture El Paso dry and sunny. It's just invokes summer. To me, it seems like a summer vacation prank gone wrong. Almost interesting. You got the beginning with those. That kind of sounds to me like a train whistle. I'm hearing motion. A train kind of evokes adventure. And running off, it sets the scene with that, for me, like. Like an adventure is coming. That drum break in the beginning. Now, interestingly, this was the first song that Steve Miller let anyone sample of his, and it was Run DMC sampled it, and apparently his initial reaction was absolutely no. And then they just kept sending what they had done to management, and management finally said, you know, you should listen to this, and abracadabra. He accepted, finally. It moved him.
- [08:44]
Janda
That's interesting, because that you even said abracadabra. Because then, of course, Eminem sampled that song, Steve Miller song, not too long ago, in fact. So interesting.
- [08:54]
Christian Lane
So full circle. You know, in rock and roll, we like to make connections. It just sounds like summer. You know, we were talking about Mungo Jerry was kind of going back to his boyhood summers, I think. You know, I was a boy when this came out. And I just have some images in my head of riding around in my brother's van listening to this.
- [09:16]
Janda
What's great about that is, to Steve Miller's credit, he's done the ultimate thing that a songwriter can do for you with Take the Money and Run, which is give you a body of work, and then you, as the listener, create your own story around it.
- [09:32]
Christian Lane
You know, I think for me, great writing, great art, great music, it creates a world that you kind of get to live in for a little while while you're listening or reading or whatever the case. And I think that's one of the magical things that art can do. You get to sort of choose your own adventure a little bit with it, which is a gift from the songwriter.
- [09:54]
Janda
That's perfectly said. And in this case, it puts you right smack dab in summer vacation in your brother's van, which is a great thing.
- [10:02]
Christian Lane
Time travel. All right, you're up.
- [10:04]
Janda
Okay. My next one is a doozy. You know, I gotta get Elo. Mr. Blue sky in this list.
- [10:11]
Christian Lane
Ah.
- [10:11]
Janda
If you want to have basically, like, a song that's an elevator up into a clear blue sky and a bright sunny day, this is definitely it. Everything about this song is about summertime. It's basically a love letter to the sun. He actually, Jeff Lynn wrote this song. He was in Switzerland trying to record. He had writer's block. It had been gloomy and rainy for days and days and days on end. The sun finally came out. He opened the window, it was shining over the Swiss Alps, and he wrote Mr. Blue Sky. It's a literal song in that sense.
- [10:52]
Christian Lane
And then, of course, Love Letter to the Sun. That's. That's great.
- [10:56]
Janda
A genuine love letter to the sun. And then because he's Jeff Lynn, he goes in and does all of the symphonic parts, and then it's a whole big thing. But it started out because he had the doldrums and the sun came out and then he didn't have them anymore. And I just think it's so beautiful. This song is scientifically guaranteed to make you feel happy. Scientifically. They did a study on it in the Netherlands. You remember when we covered this song in an episode of the behind the song podcast, Mr. Blue Sky? I thought that that was so fascinating that a scientist in the Netherlands had actually conducted research with like 2000 people and had them listen to all kinds of different songs. And overwhelmingly, Mr. Blue sky by ELO came out on top as the happiest song in existence. So there you go.
- [11:50]
Christian Lane
It's not surprising, you know, Jeff the genius, he can't just make a song. It's got to be a part of a whole. It's got to be a bigger piece. It doesn't have to be, but it's going to be. By God, the way he orchestrates things. It's amazing, the little details in this song. I think part of why this one has the legs. It does is because you hear something new every time you listen to it. Aside from it being just incredibly upbeat, having just the catchiest melodies throughout, there's little sonic treats all the way through. Just an absolutely wonderful composer, that guy.
- [12:30]
Janda
Yeah. I mean, the vocoder, the fact that a fire extinguisher was played for the percussive part. Jeff the genius. Not for nothing. I love the lyrics. Mr. Blue sky, please tell us why you had to hide away for so long. Where did we go wrong? It's so sweet. And I think that that's so true of so much of ELO's music or Jeff Lynn's music is there's like a sweet little teddy bear in there. And in this song, that teddy bear parted the curtains and saw a beautiful day and had to write about it, so.
- [13:01]
Christian Lane
Oh, it's wonderfully put, Janet.
- [13:05]
Janda
All right, next up on your list.
- [13:07]
Christian Lane
All right. Well, I'm going to segue into a Jeff Lynn co write between Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, and Jeff Lynn. And it is Tom Petty's Running Down a Dream. Yeah. Running down a dream that never would come to me.
- [13:25]
Janda
Great song. Great song for driving in the summer.
- [13:28]
Christian Lane
Exactly. So he sets the scene, obviously, with It's a Beautiful Day, the sun beat down, he had the radio on, I was driving.
- [13:37]
Janda
Right.
- [13:38]
Christian Lane
He didn't say anything else in the song. You got It. But then he name checks one of his heroes. You know, me and Del were singing Little Runaway. He's referencing Del Shannon. And so he's basically describing, like, our ideal summer day right there. You're driving, you got a radio on. I mean, you dumb. Need much more. Your best girl sitting with you, maybe your buddy, whatever, but that's it. And it's another one of those songs for me that he doesn't explicitly say summer, but it's very heavily implied.
- [14:12]
Janda
That's true. And there's something about just the concept of running down a dream that has something about summer in it.
- [14:20]
Christian Lane
It's propulsive. That guitar riff. It's just. It sounds like summer. And then the way that he goes off Mike Campbell at the end, you know, we talked about this. When we talk about great solos. I just love the way he goes off at the end. But it's very shimmery and glittery sounding too, which sounds like the sun sparkles hitting your windshield, you know, and the way that the sun reflects off the windshield, it's. It's just a wonderful track. And one more funny thing about it, Tom Petty was actually a cartoon character. He was on King of the Hill.
- [14:54]
Janda
That's right.
- [14:55]
Christian Lane
He says to Bobby in one of the episodes, I'm gonna help you run down that dream, Bobby.
- [15:01]
Janda
There you go. I love that. Again, it's a song that puts a sunny day in your mind. The writer, the songwriters in this case have done their job, you know, painting those pictures. Okay, next up on my list is a true classic and a jazz standard, as done by Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. I'm talking about the song Summertime.
- [15:27]
Christian Lane
Summer time, Time, time.
- [15:33]
Janda
Now, for my money, you can't get much better in terms of vocal emphasis and emotion than Ms. Janis Joplin. And on this song, everything about all of her abilities really, really shines when she sings the lines. Summertime, the living's easy, fish are jumping and the cotton's high. You are there you are standing on the bank of whatever muddy river she's standing on. And, you know, you got your fishing pole in the water, too. And you were right there with her. She took you there. Now, the song was written by George Gershwin. Of course, that's from Porgy and Bess. And I find this so interesting. The first person who had a hit with Summertime was Billie Holiday, okay? Back in the 30s. Now, when you think about Billie Holiday now, she, of course, is not classic rock. She is very much a jazz artist. But when you think about Billie Holiday's voice and the delivery, you know, that she would give songs. And then you think about Janis Joplin doing the same thing in a rock and blues rock format. Their voices are so eerily similar. It's so bizarre if you think about the two together. They were drinking from the same fountain, I think, in more ways than one, spiritually, emotionally. They were both very, very hard living women with an outsized talent that let them just put all these emotions into the lyrics of the music that they sang. That always did strike me. But for my money, Janis Joplin doing Summertime is, to borrow a phrase from Journey, a Stone classic.
- [17:26]
Christian Lane
Honestly, it's such a unique take on it from the band, too. You know, Big Brother does this really, really heavy and interesting interpretation of the song itself. In some ways, it's unrecognizable from most versions. And you get the feeling there's singers like Janice and Lady Day, Billie Holiday, that, you know, you said their. Their talents are outsized. And you feel like some of that hard living was just to deal with the burden of that talent, what that's like to go through life and how emotionally draining it is to perform those songs.
- [18:07]
Janda
Right.
- [18:07]
Christian Lane
It's understandable, the hard living. But what, what an incredible performance from Janice. My goodness, what a good pick.
- [18:15]
Janda
Yep. And that was on the last album that she did with Big Brother and the Holding Company, which, by the way, stayed at the top of the charts for eight weeks. Number one at the charts, that Cheap Thrills album. But, yeah, what a great song. Just a. A song that'll give you some kind of a summertime stillness, if you will, among this list. All right, so what's next on your list?
- [18:37]
Christian Lane
This is what Brian Wilson referred to as a pocket symphony. I'm picking up good vibrations she's giving me the excitation it is the song Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. It sounds like summer. It sounds like a calliope. It sounds like a merry go round. Sometimes it sounds like the beach. Brian originally wanted to call it maybe Good Vibes, and it was suggested to him that that was maybe a little bit too current, a little bit too trendy of a saying. So it was changed to Good Vibrations. His mother read him an article about how dogs can pick up on human vibrations. That fascinated Brian, stuck with him. So some of the lyrics that he had come up with on the first pass were just a little bit too much about vibrations and feeling, you know, and sensing things. And so he asked Mike Love to take a crack at it. And Mike Love came Up with basically just describing a girl. And then it shifted in the chorus to, you know, it's everything is on site. And then in the chorus it goes to the vibrations. One thing that Brian wasn't crazy about initially was excitations rhyming with Good Vibrations.
- [19:55]
Janda
That's such a huge part of the song, though.
- [19:57]
Christian Lane
But it's not a word. It's. It's a made up word. And it was bothering him. So he went to another one of his co writers, Van Dyke Parks, and said, hey, can you, can you fix this excitations thing, do you think? And Van Dyke listened to it and he said, you know what? No one's going to be listening to the lyrics when they hear this music and refuse to change it. I know what he means. Pocket Symphony at the very least. 90 hours of tape, 30 session musicians, seven months. The most expensive single up to that point in history. Good Vibrations.
- [20:32]
Janda
What a great summertime song. And I actually love how it starts with the description of the girl. It puts it all in my head right from the jump. Okay, so I am going to throw one more down here, and that is Dancing Days by Led Zeppelin.
- [20:49]
Christian Lane
Dancing days are here again Summer evenings grow.
- [20:55]
Janda
What a great track from Houses of the holy and 100% summer time. The instrumentation's awesome. You know, it has that sort of Indian feel. Apparently they were over in Bombay on like Tax Exile Plant and Page and they wanted to make a song that sounded like some of the instruments that they were hearing there. And then they got back and by George, they did it. And the story goes that they got so excited once they put the music down in the studio that they went outside and danced around to celebrate, which then. Whether that's true or not. Yeah, right. Which then inspired the title and the lyrics of the song, which I just think is such a great story, you know, either way, when the legend is.
- [21:38]
Christian Lane
Better than the the story, you always print the legend.
- [21:41]
Janda
Print the legend. And I absolutely love the nonsensical lyrics of this song because that is perfectly summery too. It doesn't really matter what the lyrics are. Does it feel like summer? Does it sound like summer? Does it make you think of summertime things? Dancing days. 100%, yes. What could he have meant when he said I saw a lion? He was standing alone with a tadpole in a jar. Who knows? Who cares? It's perfect.
- [22:10]
Christian Lane
Yeah, kind of. Who cares? I mean, you're right. That is the thing. Again, a lot of these songs, it's just the feel. It's the feel that they give you. And this feels so summery. And I think the, the sort of the eastern sounding music that sounds hot to me. That sounds like a climate where it's warm and you need to be wearing linen and it's just. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like summer to me.
- [22:35]
Janda
Right. And that's what you take from it. Let's recap our list now. Led Zeppelin Dancing Days. We had Tom Petty Running Down a Dream. We had Summertime, Janis Joplin. We had ELO, Mr. Blue Sky. We had the Beach Boys, Good Vibrations, Steve Miller Band, Take the Money and Run. And we had Mungo Jerry in the Summertime ultimate classic. And then of course, Stone in Love from Journey. I mean, that's a great Summertime playlist right there.
- [23:07]
Christian Lane
I'd be curious too, just to see what people. What sounds like summer to. To them. To anybody who's listening. Given the fact that it might not mention summer or, you know, have any explicit references to summer, it's kind of interesting to see what sparks summer to people.
- [23:25]
Janda
Yeah. So drop us a note and let us know in the comments. And, you know, maybe we'll do this again as the summer goes on.
- [23:31]
Christian Lane
Maybe there's like middle of summer songs that we should be thinking about and.
- [23:35]
Janda
Then maybe the dog days of summer too. Who knows? All right, well, cool. Thank you, Christian, as always, it's been fun to chat with you about these summery, sunshiny summertime songs for this bonus episode.
- [23:46]
Christian Lane
Thank you. It's always my pleasure.
- [23:48]
Janda
And on the way, much more classic rock and roll.