Hotter than July: Summer tunes and pop perfection

Give me 'Beach Baby' over 'Summer the First Time' any day

Driving along in air conditioned splendour on a hot summer’s day, with Stevie Wonder singing ‘For once in my life’, my eyes filled with tears at the pure perfection of it. Stevie Wonder's heartfelt lead, the backing vocals, that harmonica solo, unmistakably Stevie, and the brass orchestration. I turned to my husband, Bob, who was driving; he was filling up too. It reminded me of the story of when John Peel first heard ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones while driving. He had to pull over, as he was in tears. He had discovered the perfect pop song. Like John Peel, I'm a weeper. Some songs are understandable, those associated with our wedding, with people I have loved and lost. With others, the tears are reaction to pure pop perfection.

There are two top summer songs in my playlist, one being the Isley Brothers version of ‘Summer Breeze’, the other a one hit wonder from 1974, ‘Beach Baby’ by The First Class. I have a memory of hearing it on my tiny transistor radio as I walked through a park in Epsom after school one day, on my way to see a friend. The song tells of driving a Chevrolet to San Jose, of walking hand in hand on the beach. In the words of Mary, of Giles and Mary on Gogglebox, ‘It's so wholesome, Nutty’. Mary would cry if she heard it, I'm sure.

I was surprised to learn that John Carter, lead singer and co-writer of ‘Beach Baby’, is English. The song was co-written with Carter's wife, Jill Shakespeare, and the band
was formed from a disparate group of session and studio singers and musicians. Videos and press pictures show the band in snug-fitting T-shirts. One video has Carter in a ZZ Top T-shirt; the band members have a mix of wholesome haircuts and David Cassidy styles. It's a song that begs to be sung along to, and I must also conduct the brass section when that comes in. The brass plays a clip of, ‘Let's go to San Francisco’ right at the end. I've just learned that John Carter was in The Flowerpot Men (not Bill and Ben, for those old enough to remember) who sang that song, along with fellow First Class member Tony Burrows.

Carter also was a studio singer on ‘It's Not Unusual’ by Tom Jones, ‘I Can't Explain’ by The Who, ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ by Jeff Beck, and ‘Excerpt from a Teenage Opera’ by Keith West. Burrows once appeared in an episode of Top of the Pops in three different groups, having been involved in four different bands at the time: Edison Lighthouse, White Plains, Brotherhood of Man, and The Pipkins.

This quote comes from last.fm:

‘Carter and Shakespeare wrote the song Beach Baby in the summer of 1974 in their home in East Sheen, South West London, far from California, or for that matter, any beach […] The dense complex production led vocals and wistful lyric revoked the 1960s West Coast production style of lead beach boy Brian Wilson.’

Apparently, Carter wasn't interested in touring, and while there were live performances with other singers on the lead, The First Class was a short-lived phenomenon. They did leave us, though, with 4 minutes and 54 seconds of pop perfection.

I was 14 when the song came out. It's a great song for any age, but when I dreamed of sweet romance and nothing more than holding hands and kissing, it was just right for me, wholesome.

Another (unwelcome) summer song that has been passed as an earworm from Bob to me and back again in the past week is ‘Summer the First Time’ by Bobby Goldsboro, a sultry summer story of a 17 year old losing his cherry to a 31 year old woman. The earworm is due to the opening line, and the last day of June being this week: “It was a hot afternoon, last day of June, and the sun was a demon”. The lines that stick with me most are “She was 31, I was 17, I knew nothing about love, she knew everything”. EVERYTHING! It's all rather euphemistic in its phrasing, as befits the era, but isn't it a bit abusive, a 31 year old woman teaching a boy everything about ‘love’? “I wondered what the coming night would bring,” Goldsboro sings. A lot of repeat performances of short duration is my guess. Wholesome it is not. Give me ‘Beach Baby’ any day.

Re the title of this post, for those that don’t know, Hotter than July is an album by Stevie Wonder. It’s been on my mind, as June was scorching, and hopefully hotter than July will be. The title comes from the lyrics of ‘Master Blaster’: “Everyone’s feeling pretty, it’s hotter than July”. I end, though, with the track that started this post, ‘For Once in my Life’. Enjoy.

This post marks two years on Substack for me. Every week I think I have nothing to write about, every week an idea comes to me. I have only missed a few weeks, all of those planned breaks. This is my 102nd post. Thank you for reading.