In the Summertime: how Mungo Jerry made a sweltering classic | The Guardian

‘I still had my old job when it went to No 1. There were women chasing me across the factory floor’I still had a day job at a laboratory when the melody for In the Summertime entered my head. The lyric took 10 minutes to write. When I was young, my family always went to Hayling Island, in Hampshire, for holidays; great affairs with about 20 of us. So, for part of the song, I was recalling lovely childhood memories. “In the summertime, when the weather is high” meant high pressure, when it’s not raining and you have that sense of euphoria where you feel “you can stretch right up and touch the sky”. Singing “have a drink, have a drive” meant just a coke, a coffee or a milkshake in the days before drink became a generic term for alcohol. Continue reading…

‘I still had my old job when it went to No 1. There were women chasing me across the factory floor’

I still had a day job at a laboratory when the melody for In the Summertime entered my head. The lyric took 10 minutes to write. When I was young, my family always went to Hayling Island, in Hampshire, for holidays; great affairs with about 20 of us. So, for part of the song, I was recalling lovely childhood memories. “In the summertime, when the weather is high” meant high pressure, when it’s not raining and you have that sense of euphoria where you feel “you can stretch right up and touch the sky”. Singing “have a drink, have a drive” meant just a coke, a coffee or a milkshake in the days before drink became a generic term for alcohol.

Continue reading…