In the Summertime

*Todd plays "In the Summertime" on the piano*

***MUNGO JERRY - IN THE SUMMERTIME
A one-hit wonder retrospective***

**Todd:** Welcome back to One-Hit Wonderland, where we take a look at bands and artists known for only one song. OK

*[clip of Richie Havens at Woodstock]*

**Todd (VO):** So you know in the '60s, music was incredibly important and political and relevant to social issues and meaningful and all that.

**Todd:** Well, it seems like the '60s kind of ends with a hard snap.

*[image of newspaper articles with headlines: "Paul Quits the Beatles"....]*

**Todd (VO):** In 1970, the Beatles break up, *[....."Drugs Kill Jimi Hendrix at 24".......]* Jimi Hendrix dies, *[....Rolling Stone magazine cover with headline: "Let it Bleed"........]* The Rolling Stones try to make a second Woodstock *[.......newspaper headline: "4 Deaths Mar Rock Festival"]* that turns fatal....

**Todd:** ......and pop music suddenly gets real, real stupid.

*[clips of Tony Orlando and Dawn.........]*

**Tony Orlando:** Whoa, Candida

**Todd (VO):** Look at this

**Todd:** 1969.

*[.....Steppenwolf......]*

**John Kay:** *Get your motor running*

*Head out on the highway*

**Todd:** 1970.

*[....Ray Stevens......]*

**Ray Stevens:** *Everything is beautiful*

*In its own way*

**Todd:** 1969.

*[.....Creedence Clearwater Revival.....]*

**John Fogerty:** *It ain't me*

*It ain't me*

*I ain't no fortunate one, oh*

**Todd:** 1970.

*[....Bread.......]*

**David Gates:** *I wanna make it with you*

**Todd (VO):** Of course, these things didn't happen overnight. *[....The Archies....]* There was silly pop music in the '60s, and *[....Santana....]* serious music in the '70s obviously, *[....and the Jackson 5]* but that's the way it seemed to me, at least on the pop charts, and who said that dumb music isn't necessarily bad, dumb can be fun.

**Todd:** And folks, we're going to get very, very dumb tonight.

*[video for "In the Summertime," Todd dances along in his chair]*

**Ray Dorset:** In the summertime when the weather is hot
You can stretch right up and touch the sky

**Todd (VO):** In 1970, we could not get enough of Mungo Jerry. You know, this guy...

**Todd:**.....or band. Is it a band or a guy?

**Todd (VO):** OK, it's a band, and their big pop hit was "In the Summertime," the summer jam that went to number one in 16 countries.

**Todd:** America, actually, was not one of them. It only got to number three here, held off by *[clip of Edwin Starr's.....]*

**Todd (VO):** (singing along) War! Huh!

**Todd:** Which showed you everything about the two opposing trends in music in 1970.

**Todd (V/O):** On one side, an angry protest anthem. On the other, *[clip of "In the Summertime"]* a goofy funtime song about day drinking and going to the beach. Spoilers if you didn't already know this, but in the battle for the soul of the 70's, protest music would lose definitively *[clip of KC and the Sunshine Band - "Shake Your Booty"]* to happy-time songs. But even though 70's pop was a good decade for mindless party songs...

**Todd:** ...most of it did not sound like Mungo Jerry.

**Ray Dorset:** Sing along with us, dee dee dee-dee dee
Dah dah dah-dah dah

**Todd:** Honestly, does anything?

**Todd (VO):** I mean, I'm gonna try and put a band like this in context, but I'm not sure "In the Summertime" really has context. It's so...simple, it's like it was always there, like nursery rhymes or cave paintings. This is like the first song ever written.

**Ray Dorset:** Chh chh-chh, uh, chh chh-chh, uh
Chh chh-chh, uh

**Todd:** What even is this?

**Ray Dorset:** Chh chh-chh, uh, chh chh-chh, uh
In the summertime

***Before the hit***

**Todd:** Okay, you want some context? Here you go.

**Todd (VO):** You see this? This is a jugband. They play harmonicas and kazoos, and the percussion is just laundry baskets and shit they had lying around.

**Todd:** I've always associated this music with hillbillies and animatronic bears. But it turns out that when this started, it was actually an early form of blues music. It was big in the 20's and the 30's, and there was an offshoot of that called Skiffle. But skiffle wasn't a big deal until it was revived in England in the 50's.

> **Singer:** Cumberland gap, Cumberland gap, Fifteen miles and a Cumberland gap
>
>

**Todd (VO):** Now you can see they were trying to add an early rock 'n roll edge to it. And the Skiffle revival was hugely popular and influential in the UK. The Beatles started as a skiffle band.

**Todd:** Which is pretty much the only thing anyone knows about skiffle.

**Todd (VO):** After that, skiffle kinda goes away and you don't have to worry about it.

**Todd:** Now that I think about it, it kinda kept on.

**Todd (VO):** There was a lot of 60's music that was kinda jugband-ish, like the Grateful Dead. Creedence did a whole concept album about being a jugband. So, I guess, these old-timey bands banging on washboards, it was still present in pop culture in 1969 and 1970.

**Todd:** Which brings us to Mungo Jerry.

**Todd (VO):** Mungo Jerry is basically just Ray Dorset. That's the guy with the giant massive mutton chops and the...I don't even know what you'd call it...a Brit-fro? Everywhere has told me that this man is 100% Caucasian, but no white man has the right to have that haircut! And the other guys are an eternally rotating cast, as is usual in these videos.

**Todd:** I'm finding out that having your success limited to one song is not really conducive to having a stable lineup.

**Todd (VO):** He started Mungo Jerry in 1970 after a bunch of his other bands didn't take off. And if you know your musicals, you might recongnize the name.

> **Cats:** Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer
>
>

**Todd (VO):** Of course, he got the name from the source material. The band actually happened about 10 years before Andrew Lloyd Weber's horror musical about hideous feline monstrosities.

**Todd:** But where they really took off was at a music festival that year where they, as complete unknowns, appeared on a bill with, like, the Grateful Dead, and Traffic, and Black Sabbath. And even though they were no one, apparently they just killed it. Because within months, they had a #1 hit. What was so amazing about them that they outshone the Dead and Sabbath?

***The Big Hit***

*Video for "In the Summertime" starts*

**Todd (VO):** So anyway, all the stuff I said about Skiffle at the beginning

**Todd:** That's why this...belching, wheezing, grunting song sounds like it does.

> **Ray Dorset:** In the summertime, when the weather is hot...
>
>

**Todd (VO):** It's trying to emulate stuff from...like, not even the skiffle revival but the original skiffle from...before instruments were invented.

**Todd:** I swear to God that in my memory, the percussion isn't just grunts and washboards, but also, like...

**Todd (VO):** Clown horns, fart noises...

*Video for "In the Summertime" plays with clown horns and fart noises*

**Todd:** So you can imagine they stuck out

**Todd (VO):** In 1970, there were a ton of British bands who were all very much into the blues, but they were...all very electric and loud.

**Todd (VO):** Mungo Jerry took it back to when blues was played on kazoos and was very simple. Dorset says he wrote the song in 10 minutes.

> **Ray Dorset:** Sing along with us, (scatting)
>
>

**Todd:** ...Yeah, 10 minutes sounds about right...but, you know, of course, it should be simple, it's such an innocent song!

> **Ray Dorset:** If her daddy's rich, take her out for a meal. If her daddy's poor, just do what you feel.
>
>

**Todd:** ...Okay, maybe not \*so\* innocent...Although I'm not sure why you think rich girls are somehow \*less\* easy...I'm...not sure that stereotype holds up
**Todd (VO):** Nowadays we're used to our summer songs being party jams.

> **Ray Dorset:** When the winter's here, yeah it's party time
>
>

**Todd (VO):** This isn't really a "party jam" because it doesn't jam, it's...too laid back. it doesn't...even really have a chorus. It's one of those rare songs about partying in the daytime.

> **Ray Dorset:** Have a drink, have a drive, go out and see what you can find.
>
>

**Todd:** ...No, do one or the other, don't do both!

> **Ray Dorset:** Have a drink, have a drive
>
>

**Todd (VO):** God, this was so written in 1970, I bet you probably could drink and drive and no one would say anything back then, but uh...

**Todd:** From uh...from the future I'm telling you "No."

**Todd (VO):** No, don't do that. Don't. Which is alarming, cause...

**Todd:** There's an actual part where the song stops and then a motorcycle drives away...

*The above part of the song*

**Todd:** So uh...I guess, there they go...Why didn't someone get his keys?

> **Ray Dorset:** We're no threat, people, we're not dirty, we're not mean. We love everybody, but we do as we please.
>
>

**Todd (VO):** I mean it's such a...smug...hedonistic song...It's like a less pot-centric "Because I Got High"...or even an early, less-awful version of "The Lazy Song," and in fact, I might know another song it could have influenced.

> **Ray Dorset:** Always happy, life's living yeah, that's our philosophy
>
>

**Todd:** I think I've heard of this philosophy.
*Video for "Hakuna Matata" plays*

> **Simba, Timon and Pumbaa:** It's our problem free philosophy: Hakuna Matata
>
>

**Todd:** I think I've said before that I'm not big on songs about people who don't have problems, and...
**Todd (VO):** Good god, is this song that.

> **Ray Dorset:** When the weather's fine, we go fishing or go swimming in the sea
>
>

**Todd (VO):** This is mindless pleasure seeking at it's most mindless. I don't think they have jobs, or...will ever have jobs. They just...drink. They screw, they go fishing, they go \*fishing\*!

> **Ray Dorset:** We go fishing or go swimming in the sea
>
>

**Todd (VO):** And they sound too old to still be in school, so I think this is just...how they spend \*every\* summer.

**Todd:** For the rest of their lives.

**Todd (VO):** And yet, I'm pretty okay with it. Like, if you find it super annoying, like, I totally get it. I'm not sure why I'm okay with this song, maybe...because it's too chill and...I don't wanna be a downer for once.

**Todd:** And, you know, now, thinking about it some more, I didn't know why I picked this song for an episode, but...now I think I do...it's because we're in the middle of the bleakest, least "summer-y" summer in music history.

**Todd:** Billboard is running a poll for the "song of the summer." Let's check out our options!

*Video for "Sign of the Times" plays*

> **Harry Styles:** Just stop your crying it's a sign of the times
>
>

**Todd:** Oh yeah, real beach party music right there! Bust out the beers and the frisbees...

**Todd (VO):** So this song, dumb as it is, needed to exist. It's, it's like a hippie song about peace and love and mellowness. Like, even Hendrix liked it.

**Todd:** But even if you weren't a hippie; if you would never fit in the counterculture, you could still get with this song. It's just...real tons of crossover appeal, this band, which, again, is why it went to #1 in \*16 countries\*.

> **Ray Dorset:** We're always happy, life's for living yeah, that's our philosophy
>
>

**Todd:** Now, let's see how they failed to capitalize.

***The Reasonably Successful Follow Up***

**Todd:** HA! Nope! Another not-failure!

**Todd (VO):** Even though we "dumb Americans" couldn't the unique sound of Mungo Jerry, they remained huge the world over.

**Todd:** ...Okay, that's not true either.

**Todd (VO):** Mungo Jerry never again reached the heights of "In the Summertime," but in the U.K. they did manage to hang in there. They were never that big again, but they stuck it out through the 70s and kept getting hits. Like, you know...Flo Rida.

**Todd:** Never really the huge name, but...always kinda...there.

**Todd (VO):** Now take this, this is "Baby Jump"

> **Ray Dorset:** Said baby baby, baby jump into my dream.
>
>

**Todd (VO):** This was a \*huge\* Brit hit. It went to #1 , it's there other #1 single, so...you know, that's successful, I guess.

**Todd:** On the other hand, I follow a British music blog, and when they reviewed this song, literally none of the commenters had ever heard of it.

**Todd (VO):** I don't know, it looks like time...has swallowed this one.

> **Ray Dorset:** I dreamt that she was Lady Chatterly and I was the gamekeeper. I dreamt that I was Humbert and she was Lolita.
>
>

**Todd:** ...Okay, I was not expecting to hear literary references from \*this\* band of all bands.

**Todd (VO):** They sound like they don't read anything but beer labels. Also...does he know what Lolita was about? Now as you can see, at some point they did decide to electric it up, but they still sound just so...ramshackle, like...at any moment all their instruments are gonna fall apart like The Blues Brothers' car.

*Video for "Baby Jump" plays*

**Todd:** \*blank stare\*...8 years of piano lessons my parents gave me...and all this time all I needed to learn was this!

*Video for "Baby Jump" plays followed by Todd imitating the motions of the piano player*

*Video for "You Don't Have to Be in the Army to Fight in the War" plays*

> **Ray Dorset:** You don't have to be in the army to fight in the war
>
>

**Todd (VO):** Don't know how to explain their other songs exactly because...most of it all kinda sounds the same to me. I mean, I guess there are some variations. Like here they are...they're doing some kind of a Dylan thing, which is a good look for them.

*Video for "Hey Nadine" plays*

**Todd (VO):** And this one here is one of their more polished songs

> **Ray Dorset:** Hey, Nadine, hello
>
>

**Todd (VO):** Not sure I want a polished Mungo Jerry, though, honestly. I mean, their whole appeal is that they sound like Fat Albert's junkyard band.

**Todd:** And when I said that they remained successful "around the world," that's kinda...not a joke?

*Video for "Lady Rose" plays*

> **Ray Dorset:** My lady Rose
>
>

**Todd (VO):** As far as I can tell, their time as hitmakers in the U.K. ended sometime in the mid-to-late 70s, but...they've had weird blips of success all around the world. Like this song, this one was a big hit in...Japan.

*Video for "Can't Get Over Lovin' You" plays*

**Todd (VO):** This was their only other hit in...Denmark.

*Video for "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" plays*

> **Ray Dorset:** Knock knock knockin' on Heaven's door
>
>

**Todd (VO):** Oh and here's them doing a reggae cover of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." This was a big #1 hit in South Africa. They were apparently quite big in early 80s apartheid era South Africa.

**Todd:** Why the hell not?!

***Did They Ever Do Anything Else?***

**Todd:** I'm not sure Mungo Jerry ever actually stopped being a thing.

**Todd (VO):** But eventually by the mid-80s the hits eventually dried up even overseas. He did do a little songwriting. For example, he wrote a song for Elvis.

*Video for "Feels Like I'm in Love" plays*

**Todd (VO):** Unfortunately Elvis died before he could record it, but...some other British singer did and it became a #1 hit in 1980.

> **Kelly Marie:** My knees are shakin' baby, my heart it beats like a drum. It feels like, it feels like I'm in love.
>
>

**Todd:** ...England, is this how you...did disco?

**Todd (VO):** I mean...this is...like, the cheap...BBC version of disco. It's, like, we had the Star Wars of disco and this is, like, old Doctor Who reruns.

**Todd (VO):** You know, Ray still takes the band on tour every now and then...he's got a hair salon now.

**Todd:** And, of course, when you've got a hit as big as "In the Summertime" in your bank, you rerecord it endlessly.

*Video for "In the Summertime '87" plays*

> **Ray Dorset:** In the summertime, when the weather is hot
>
>

**Todd:** \*stares blankly\*...The 80s were a mistake...
*Another updated "In the Summertime" video plays*

> **Skibadee:** In the summertime, when the weather is hot, you can stretch right up...when the weather's right
>
>

**Todd:** \*blankly stares\*...The 2010s were also a mistake...

***Did They Deserve Better?***

**Todd:** I can say definitively that Mungo Jerry got every bit of success they deserved.

*Original video for "In the Summertime" plays*

> **Ray Dorset:** In the summertime, when the weather is hot
>
>

**Todd (VO):** "In the Summertime" is an eternal jam. The rest of their stuff...

**Todd:** \*shrugs\* It's fine.

**Todd (VO):** It was moderately good. Got them a moderate amount of success. They weren't overrated or underrated. They were...they were rated. They were perfectly rated.

**Todd:** And if you're doing anything fun this summer...this might not be a bad song to throw on...It's certainly better than anything you're gonna get from 2017!

*Closing Tag Song: Shagy feat. Rayvon - "In the Summertime"*

***THE END***

***"In the Summertime" is owned by Pye Records***

***This video is owned by me***

***THANK YOU TO THE LOYAL PATRONS!***