Ah, the teenage joy and angst of a summer love! Trees swaying in a summer breeze. Gazing at the lights in a starry sky. Soft kisses on a summer’s day. Just you and I.
If those lines sound like they are elements of a love song that is because they are. British duo Chad & Jeremy released “ A Summer Song” on July 31, 1964. Chad Stuart wrote the song along with Clive Metcalfe and Keith Noble. They did not think of it as anything more than a “pretty, romantic song,” album filler material perhaps but not single material.
Listeners disagreed. “A Summer Song” reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. and was the duo’s biggest hit. The British audience favored upbeat tempo songs over “sweet sounding songs” and so it did not do as well over there.
The first few verses are warm and idyllic as the lines above demonstrate. The acoustic guitar lends a sense of dreamy nostalgia to the verse. You can easily picture the young couple as they spend their days and nights in each other’s company, sharing a bond and secrets only their hearts can know. Or so it seems.
But they also know that “all good things must end someday; autumn leaves must fall.” This lends an air of melancholy to the tale. They know it is a love that can never last and “it will hurt me so to say good-bye to you.”
They will be left with fond memories. “When the rain beats against my window pane I’ll think of summer days again. And dream of you.”
Yes, a summer love is bittersweet.
“A Summer Song” first appeared on Chad & Jeremy’s album Yesterday’s Gone. The album featured their hit song of the same name. Interestingly, both songs focused on summer romance. “Yesterday’s Gone” was more upbeat and rock oriented. Its refrain of “I loved you yesterday but yesterday’s gone” sounds like an invitation to get lost. It lacks any sense of warmth and fondness.”
Like “Things We Said Today,” “A Summer Song” has a sense of “someday we will look back fondly on this time” to it – a future nostalgia feel, if you will. But many sixties love songs, like love songs of any era, focus on the here and now. We look at one of those next time.
