Lookin’ for Some Hot Stuff Baby This Evenin’

Well, today is the first official day of summer. So up to this point all of the barbequing, sandal-wearing, outdoor swimming, etc. hasn’t counted. We will be celebrating the summer solstice here in Colorado with a near 100-degree F day. Yee-haw! You know, I love warm weather. But once it starts getting in the triple digits that’s even too warm for me. I usually try to head up into the mountains when that happens since it tends to be 10-15 degrees cooler, but that doesn’t really help when I’m driving down the road in a car with no AC or when attending a middle-of-the-day summer company picnic like yesterday. In fact, I’m sporting a pretty nice red forehead from that little venture. It could have been worse, I guess. Since the sun was directly above me I was spared the wonderful “raccoon look” from wearing my sunglasses.

I know what you’re thinking: Why didn’t you wear a hat and/or put on sunscreen you big dummy? Well, I normally do and I would have, except this was conveniently scheduled during the middle of the work day so everyone could (had to?) attend. So, in order to not mess up my well-coifed ‘do and to avoid smelling like coconut all day I passed. ‘Cuz you know, I’d rather look like a bright-red beet for a few days than have to spend a single afternoon with hat hair…

Anyway, in honor of the official start to my most favorite season, I was going to list off a top-whatever list of “summer” songs. Then, I realized that the vast majority of summer songs are incredibly lame or outrageously overplayed. Seriously, how many times can you hear “Summer in the City” or “Dancin’ in the Streets” before you start asking yourself if it is the end of September yet?

But I don’t want to disappoint, so I was able to come up with a handful of summer tunes:

Doin’ Time by Sublime. Ok, this is basically a cover of an old Gershwin tune that has been redone a thousand times, but I really like Sublime so they make the list.

Blue Sky by the Allman Brothers. Just a happy, feel-good tune. Plus, it is one of those few Allman Bros. songs that doesn’t have a woman’s name in the title…

Girl by Beck. I love Beck. This is a nice little pop track that he put out a year or two ago. It gets a lot of radio play around here, but in this rare case I don’t mind. A good tune to crank while driving along in your little tin can car with all of the windows rolled down because you don’t have AC…

Summertime by Janis Joplin. Basically the same song Sublime covered, but presented in such a different way I thought it would be ok to slip it on the list. Sultry and bluesy, Janis really nailed it on this lesser-known track of hers. She’s at her best when she gets raw and belts it out, and she definitely doesn’t disappoint on this one.

Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran, but I like The Who’s version myself. However, every time I hear it I think of that weird outfit Roger Daltrey wore at Woodstock (I was going to link a picture of it, but couldn’t come up with a good one doing an image search. So, you’ll just have to trust me on this one…).

See? I’m already running low on good ones. Do I include “Summer” by War or “Hot Fun in the Summertime” by Sly & the Family Stone? I like both of those groups, but IMO those are some relatively weak tracks when compared to their other respective releases. I’m sure there are some more decent summer tunes out there, but all of the rest I can think of either suck completely (“Summer of ’69”by Bryan Adams, anyone?) or get an “eh…” like “In the Summertime” by Mungo Jerry or “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper. So, please help me out fellow bloggers. Any ones that I missed that deserve to go on the list? Any of the few that I did happen to mention that you disagree with? Feel free to chime in, we’ve got a few months.