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Released in 1988

Summertime

Written by George Gershwin

Last updated on September 2, 2016


Album This song officially appears on the CHOBA B CCCP Official album.

Timeline This song was officially released in 1988

Master album

Related sessions

This song was recorded during the following studio sessions:

From Wikipedia:

Summertime” is an aria composed in 1934 by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward, the author of the novel Porgy on which the opera was based, although the song is also co-credited to Ira Gershwin by ASCAP.

The song soon became a popular and much recorded jazz standard, described as “without doubt … one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote … Gershwin’s highly evocative writing brilliantly mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of blacks in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century“. Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has characterized Heyward’s lyrics for “Summertime” and “My Man’s Gone Now” as “the best lyrics in the musical theater“. The song is recognized as one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music, with more than 33,000 covers by groups and solo performers.

Porgy and Bess

Gershwin began composing the song in December 1933, attempting to create his own spiritual in the style of the African American folk music of the period. Gershwin had completed setting DuBose Heyward’s poem to music by February 1934, and spent the next 20 months completing and orchestrating the score of the opera.

The song is sung several times throughout Porgy and Bess. Its lyrics are the first words heard in act 1 of the opera, following the communal “wa-do-wa”. It is sung by Clara as a lullaby. The song theme is reprised soon after as counterpoint to the craps game scene, in act 2 in a reprise by Clara, and in act 3 by Bess, singing to Clara’s now-orphaned baby after both its parents died in the storm. It was recorded for the first time by Abbie Mitchell on July 19, 1935, with George Gershwin playing the piano and conducting the orchestra (on: George Gershwin Conducts Excerpts from Porgy & Bess, Mark 56 667).

The 1959 movie version of the musical featured Loulie Jean Norman singing the song. That rendition finished at #52 in AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.

Analysis

Lyrics

Heyward’s inspiration for the lyrics was the southern folk spiritual-lullaby “All My Trials“, of which he had Clara sing a snippet in his play Porgy. The lyrics have been highly praised by Stephen Sondheim. Writing of the opening line, he says

That “and” is worth a great deal of attention. I would write “Summertime when” but that “and” sets up a tone, a whole poetic tone, not to mention a whole kind of diction that is going to be used in the play; an informal, uneducated diction and a stream of consciousness, as in many of the songs like “My Man’s Gone Now”. It’s the exact right word, and that word is worth its weight in gold. “Summertime when the livin’ is easy” is a boring line compared to “Summertime and”. The choices of “ands” [and] “buts” become almost traumatic as you are writing a lyric – or should, anyway – because each one weighs so much.

Music

Musicologist K. J. McElrath wrote of the song:

Gershwin was remarkably successful in his intent to have this sound like a folk song. This is reinforced by his extensive use of the pentatonic scale (C–D–E–G–A) in the context of the A minor tonality and a slow-moving harmonic progression that suggests a “blues”. Because of these factors, this tune has been a favorite of jazz performers for decades and can be done in a variety of tempos and styles.

While in his own description, Gershwin did not use any previously composed spirituals in his opera, Summertime is often considered an adaptation of the African American spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child“, which ended the play version of Porgy. Alternatively, the song has been proposed as an amalgamation of that spiritual and the Ukrainian Yiddish lullaby Pipi-pipipee. The Ukrainian-Canadian composer and singer Alexis Kochan has suggested that some part of Gershwin’s inspiration may have come from having heard the Ukrainian lullaby, “Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon” (“A Dream Passes By The Windows“) at a New York City performance by Alexander Koshetz’s Ukrainian National Chorus in 1929 (or 1926).

Paul McCartney recorded “Summertime” in 1987 to appear on his Choba B CCCP album; from the liner notes of this album:

This George Gershwin song was integrated into rock ‘n’ roll by that most notorious of rock’s outsiders, Gene Vincent. Stateside, Vincent was never afforded the same kind of God-like status he enjoyed in France and Britain due to the fact that his uncompromising rough-edge working class image was out of favour in an environment where squeaky-clean Fabian and Frankie Avalon dominated. As with Little Richard, Paul’s friendship with Vincent stems from those days when The Beatles took second billing to the American rocker.


Lyrics

Summertime

And the living is easy

Fish are jumpin'

And the cotton is high


Your daddy's rich

And your mama's good lookin'

So hush little baby

Don't you cry


One of these mornin's

You're gonna rise up singin'

You're gonna spread your wings

And take to the sky


But til that mornin'

Ain't nothin' gonna harm you

So hush little baby now

Don't you cry


One of these mornin's

You're gonna rise up singin'


One of these mornin's

You're gonna rise up singin'

You're gonna spread your wings

And you'll take to the sky


But til that mornin'

Ain't nothin' can harm you

So hush little baby now

Don't you cry


With your daddy & your mammy

Standin' by

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

See all bootlegs containing “Summertime

Live performances

Summertime” has been played in 3 concerts and 6 soundchecks.

Latest concerts where “Summertime” has been played


Going further

Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989

With 25 albums of pop music, 5 of classical – a total of around 500 songs – released over the course of more than half a century, Paul McCartney's career, on his own and with Wings, boasts an incredible catalogue that's always striving to free itself from the shadow of The Beatles. The stories behind the songs, demos and studio recordings, unreleased tracks, recording dates, musicians, live performances and tours, covers, events: Music Is Ideas Volume 1 traces McCartney's post-Beatles output from 1970 to 1989 in the form of 346 song sheets, filled with details of the recordings and stories behind the sessions. Accompanied by photos, and drawing on interviews and contemporary reviews, this reference book draws the portrait of a musical craftsman who has elevated popular song to an art-form.

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