Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. LXXVII--War: Summer

Sunday marks the official beginning of summer, so naturally my thoughts turn to...great songs about summer...which brings us to a little ditty entitled, appropriately enough, "Summer" by War for this week's Jukebox feature.

If you're of a certain age (a polite way of saying "old"), you can remember when record labels would add a new track to Greatest Hits packages as a way of suckering people into buying the Greatest Hits album--if you were a big enough fan you'd already have all the hits but you absolutely had to have that new single.  "Summer" was just such a single--though unlike many such songs, it was actually worth the price.

War, much like last week's band The Guess Who, had a great run from the early 70's through the mid 70's--it would have been hard to get through any of those years without thee or four War singles making the charts and getting plenty of airplay.  Originally, known as Eric Burdon (of Animals and "The House of the Rising Sun" fame) and War (until Burdon's departure in 1970), the band formed in 1969 and was a multi-ethnic (somewhat novel for the time) band that featured a plethora of musical styles--jazz, funk, rock, reggae, R & B, and Latin.  Their album The World Is a Ghetto was the best selling LP of 1973.  War is still together and touring, though only one of the original members is still playing (sadly, two of the original members have passed).  Also like The Guess Who, their Greatest Hits package is a delight to listen to even these so many years later--chock full of great songs with lots of great grooves.

Released in 1976, "Summer" was the last hit single War would have, reaching #7 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  Amazingly enough, the song is a tribute to that most wonderful time of the year--no, not fucking Christmas:  summer.  Though the lyrics are somewhat dated (they're not somewhat dated, they're tremendously dated) with references to listening to 8-Tracks (again, of a certain age) and CB radios (ditto), the song is still an infectious ode to all the things we love to do when the weather is warm and the sky is blue.  Best of all, it's sung and performed in a hazy lazy groove reminiscent of summer itself, with some wonderful four part harmonies on the chorus.  All in all, if you're a fan of summer (count me in) or summer songs (ditto), War's tribute to long days and short nights is a winner.

Truer words:  "Yes it's summer/My time of year...."

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee