They say that where there is light there is dark, and so, it is with the brightness of summer that there’s a kind of spookiness to it that looms at the dusky part of the day. It’s in these weeks approaching this time of year, when the days get just a bit longer before they start their slow and steady return to shorter, that I suggest a listen to the sound of the high summer blues.

Now, when I say summertime blues, I don’t mean the 1958 song by Eddie Cochran; I’m also ruling out square ditties like “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer” and “Summertime, Summertime.” Nor am I thinking of the cockamamie songs sparked by the Summer of Love in San Francisco, like how “out there it’s summertime, milk, and honey days” (from “San Francisco Girls (Return of the Native)” by Fever Tree) or the “warm San Franciscan nights” described by Eric Burdon and the Animals, which is, of course, an oxymoron. I’m talking about “Summertime”, and the livin’ is easy “Summertime”, the touchstone of dark night summertime songs, its emphasis on the minor-key. The song’s inspired cover after cover of rock ‘n’ soul versions, some of which achieve the desired high-level mastery of unity between words and music of the original work—but we’ll get to those in a minute.

“Summertime” by George and Ira Gershwin, with additional lyricists DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, was composed for George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, based on the book Porgy by DuBose Heyward. Set on Catfish Row—a fictional location based on the real-life Cabbage Row in Charleston, South Carolina—the action opens as a mother rocks her baby to sleep. Gershwin prepped for his composition by studying traditional American music—jazz, blues, and spirituals—but as “Summertime” is specifically a lullaby, he also wedged in the melody from an old Ukrainian bedtime song, “Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon”, to set the mood. Now, when you think about it, some lullabies are already dark (“Rock-a-bye Baby”). So he’s made it so you can’t mistake it—this is summertime with an edge.

The song’s ballast is provided by two notes: “The chords rock back and forth—nowhere to go—the melody sits there—nowhere to go,” explains pianist/composer/conductor Rob Kapilow in an interview with NPR. The two notes are balanced by a tempo that defines the slower pace of summer; Kapilow notes that one of the most famous pieces in all of popular music gets its job done in just 12 measures. The depth of feeling and heaviosity of the song is underscored by the greats who went on to give it their own unique stabs of intensity, from John Coltrane’s blustery vision, Miles Davis’ sleepy jam and Charlie Parker’s traditional one, to Nina Simone’s smoky piano version and Billie Holiday’s defining jazz vocal.

When it comes to rock ‘n’ soul, I recommend Booker T and the MGs for a demonstration of the whole two-note, rock the cradle, summertime thing. The Zombies’ 1965 version of “Summertime” is fittingly eerie for a band called the Zombies, and is also in perfect tune with their English-sophisticate sound; the beat group’s leanings toward minor-keyed orchestral jazziness is what made them unique. The following year, Billy Stewart’s 1966 version was, well, you’ve heard of psychedelic soul, right? This soul is stark raving mad good. Distinguished by Stewart’s “doubling” words, its horn jabs, and startling pops and wows, this is not your usual “Summertime”, and it’s surely no lullaby. And then there’s Janis Joplin: Her likeliest inspiration would’ve been Holiday, though her own share of living the blues meant she could work the song’s elements to maximum effect (and her band’s spooky guitar adds a fourth or fifth dimension to summertime reality). Producer Eddie Kramer, who witnessed Joplin’s Woodstock performance of the song and recorded it, told me, “That’s the one that just kills me. It’s an absolutely spectacular interpretation. It just hits really hard. The dynamics are just ridiculous. Her dynamics were her specialty.” (My talk with Kramer on his Woodstock and Hendrix experiences will appear in an upcoming issue of Crawdaddy!)

That same summer, Sly and the Family Stone had their mighty Woodstock moment; they followed their jams there with a single, “Hot Fun in the Summertime.” The song expertly weaves in and out of eerie minor to major as a way to denote summer bluesiness: “High, high, high, hi there.” The trip is that the melody just doesn’t sound all that fun. The livin’ is easy? Doesn’t sound like it. There’s that longing again for summers gone by, rather than a true celebration of the summer that’s here (War’s “Summer” does it that way, too). Sly’s just might be in the running for best summer song ever, tied with the Lovin’ Spoonful’s timebomb-tense “Summer in the City” (or maybe I think that because they best recall summers past for me).

The summer of ’69 (I think I feel a song coming on) also brought about a revival of Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” at Woodstock by the Who, who had been performing the song in their sets since 1967. Blue Cheer had also recorded it in ’68 with a version that is often called the “first heavy metal record.” I’d say heavier, yet so was the Who’s 1970 version, which drove “Summertime Blues” to louder and wilder heights on Live at Leeds. There’s hardly anything bluesy about these records, though “In the Summertime”, a massive hit for Mungo Jerry in 1970 that played all summer long, has a touch of summer mischief to it. The couplet “Have a drink, have a drive / Go out and see what you can find” has a dubious, double-edge of summer ring to it.

In 1983, Jonathan Richman named it in a song: “That Summer Feeling.” It’s “gonna haunt you one day in your life.” You got that right, Jo Jo. He remembers when “the cool of the pond makes you drop down on it” and when “the smell of the lawn makes you flop down on it,” though darkness looms as the “teenage car gets the cop down on it.”

In 2002, Chuck Prophet picked up on the tradition of calling out high summer’s bright spots, its heat, and descriptions of what’s cookin’ in his “Summertime Thing.” Like “Hot Fun in the Summertime”, he used the theme of a summer romance (or a romance with summer); a mystery-conjuring guitar line helped carry it. He went ahead and used “lazy,” “hazy,” and “crazy” like good ol’ Nat King Cole did. And he even went for broke like Richman did and rhymed “it” with “it”—“Money in the bank, I ain’t gonna save it / Jenny come by, hope she makes it.” It clicked. Perhaps Prophet was able to get so far inside the wistfulness-of-summer thing because he lives in San Francisco, where there is no summer to speak of, and July is the cruelest month of them all. Having traded Fog Town for Dog Town, I know: Though I occasionally miss the summertime made-in-San Francisco treat they call an It’s-It, I feel no yearning for summers past there. Now that the dog days of climate change are upon us, and summer and winter fall unpredictably for all, there is plenty of reason for the summertime blues. And yet, I hope that as the world burns, we might all enjoy a little bit of hot fun in the summertime.

Watch: Janis Joplin, “Summertime” [at youtube.com]

Read more from Origin of Song:

Flute Loop: Exploring the Reedless Wonder

The Cramps’ Lux Interior: The Ultimate Trashman

I Got My Radio On