3 July 1970
If you were heading out-out for a feed of pints in ’80s Ireland and planned on taking the car, you had to heed the official drink-driving campaign slogan: Just Two Will Do! In that light, the line from ‘In The Summertime’ that sticks out most to modern sensibilities—“have a drink, have a drive”—seems like progressive road safety for its day: one drink, one drive.
Other parts of Mungo Jerry’s mega-hit remain resistant to our tastes. The summertime is when “you’ve got women on your mind”, because there are no seasons for anyone who fancies otherwise. And what can those lucky ladies look forward to? “If her daddy’s poor / just do what you feel” As well as conjuring up sun-dappled folksiness, the hippy-go-lucky worldview of ‘In The Summertime’ contains the less welcome inkling that in the late-’60s and early-’70s men had free love and women had consequences.
So, ‘In The Summertime’ doesn’t come out well from closer listening. Yes, its instantly recognisable piano-banjo riff is still astonishingly evocative, and its shuffling rhythm is irresistibly breezy and feelgood. However, once you get past its opening lines, a Mungo Jerry summer proves to be high season for the law of diminishing returns. After all, the second half of the track is literally the first half repeated, and even before then the song has exhausted itself, hence the placeholder-text verse of “sing along with us / dee-dee-dee-dee-dee / da-da-da, da-da / yeah, we’re hap-happy”. ‘Hap-happy’ feels particularly slap-slapdash.
Why am I on the snark with ‘In The Summertime’, you’re shouting at your screen right now. Well, along with its own unpleasantnesses, I’ve listened to Mungo Jerry’s other UK chart-topper and a no. 5 hit in Ireland, the gruff and nasty 1971 blues-rocker ‘Baby Jump’, which includes such lyrics as: “I dream that I was Humbert and she was Lolita”. It seems like this is what Mungo Jerry Man had on his mind in the summertime of 1970, along with drink-driving.
Incidentally, as 1970 was a time before the musical Cats delighted us with its existence, Mungo Jerry can claim to be a number one act named after the works of T.S. Eliot. I don’t feel so inclined to extend this highbrow distinction to 1990 ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’ hitmakers Bombalurina, the Timmy Mallett vehicle backseat-driven by Andrew Lloyd Webber, co-creator of Cats. Rum tum tugger.
