Gershwin's Summertime: The Song That Conquered the World


Gershwin's Summertime: The Song That Conquered the World

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# It's summertime

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# And the livin' is easy... #

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This is a journey into a song.

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A song that's captured the imagination of the world.

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# Your daddy's rich

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# And your mamma's good-lookin'

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# Won't you hush, pretty baby

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# Don't you cry... #

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I can play Summertime in Turkey, I can play Summertime in Tokyo,

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I can play Summertime in Sao Paulo, I can play it in Kingston, Jamaica.

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The audiences all know it.

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# Then you'll spread your wings

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# And take to the sky... #

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Summertime has got its own pair of wings.

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I don't know why, but they know Summertime.

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Everybody knows Summertime.

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Summertime is the most covered song on the planet.

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At least 25,000 versions exist.

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SLOW BALLAD: # Summertime... #

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From jazz to disco...

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-DISCO:

-# And the livin' is easy... #

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-SOUL:

-# Fish are jumpin'... #

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..from blues rock...

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BLUES: # And the livin' is easy... #

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..to hip hop.

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SLOW BLUES: # It's summertime

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# And the livin' is easy... #

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It's become the ultimate hymn to summer.

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Yet Summertime has taken on other meanings too.

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It's been re-invented throughout the 20th century.

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As a civil rights prayer...

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..a hippie lullaby....

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..an ode to seduction...

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..and a modern freedom song.

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# You're gonna rise up singing... #

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But for the composer, it was none of these things.

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George Gershwin wrote Summertime as the opening aria to an opera

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and never dreamt of the global impact it would have.

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This is the story of how, against all odds,

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a forgotten melody conquered the world.

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George Gershwin was born in New York in 1898

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to Jewish immigrants from Russia.

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At this time, there was a huge migration of Jews from Europe

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and black Americans from the South.

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There was nothing to suggest that George or his brother Ira -

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sons of a shoe factory foreman - were destined for greatness.

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This is a kid who grew up in the rough and tumble of Brooklyn.

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He was a streetwise troublemaker.

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It was Ira who used to bail him out

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when he got into trouble with the police or the neighbours.

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You couldn't see, in those days, that this intensely-concentrated

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musical mind would emerge.

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# Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm that pitter pats through my brain... #

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Young George Gershwin might have been a troublemaker,

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but he had a passion for music,

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which blossomed in his teenage years.

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# Comes in the morning without any warning

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# And hangs around me all day... #

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After a short stint playing the piano in a bar,

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the teenage Gershwin was offered the job of song-plugger

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in the fiercely competitive world of Tin Pan Alley.

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By the 1920s, Gershwin was writing hit songs like

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Fascinating Rhythm and Oh, Lady Be Good for Broadway musicals.

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# Start a-hopping

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# Never stopping... #

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But for Gershwin, this success was not enough.

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He was determined to rise above his humble origins

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and prove himself as a serious composer.

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MUSIC: "Rhapsody In Blue" by George Gershwin

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At the age of 25, Gershwin composed Rhapsody In Blue,

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a jazz-influenced classical concerto.

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It was a triumph.

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But this Brooklyn marvel had his eyes on an even greater prize -

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a grand opera.

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When he set out to write an operatic work, it became known that

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that's what he was doing and there were snorts of derision

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from various parts of the serious and classical musical world

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and that attitude remained right the way through

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to beyond the first night.

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# Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom

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# When the jungle shadows fall

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# Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock

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# As it stands against the wall... #

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Much of Gershwin's life up to the early 1930s was Broadway.

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This was the world of Cole Porter's Night And Day and musicals

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with frothy storylines, sparkling lyrics and big show-stopping tunes.

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# Night and day, you are the one... #

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In choosing to write a serious opera,

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Gershwin was taking a massive gamble.

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He risked damaging his reputation and alienating his audience.

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But it was a calculated risk,

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because he believed he had discovered just the right story

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that would play to his dramatic and musical strengths.

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DuBose Heyward had written a novel called Porgy,

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not Porgy And Bess, and Gershwin was not a great reader.

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His apartment wasn't full of learned books or even novels,

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but for some reason, he read it one night

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and apparently he stayed up until four in the morning

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because it simply captivated him.

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This novel, about a crippled black beggar and his attempt to rescue

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Bess from her pimp, allowed Gershwin to write a revolutionary new opera

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imbued with the African-American music he loved so much.

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# I got plenty of nothin'

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# And nothing's plenty for me

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# I got no car, I got no mule

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# I got no misery

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# The folks with plenty of plenty... #

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Gershwin travelled to Charleston, South Carolina,

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where the novel was set, immersing himself in the black culture

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of the area, particularly that of Folly Island.

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# What for? #

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When he went down and lived with those Negroes

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and did dancing with them, shouting with them, which he know he did,

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it was as though this New Yorker had never lived anywhere else.

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So we have to be grateful

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that this chromium-plated, Manhattan cocktail party hero

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who had round his piano in New York all these flappers

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and his latest songs, which he played for hours on end,

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this was very different from the man who was living in a shack

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down in South Carolina with the sand crabs and singing the songs,

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which he was hearing with the local community around there.

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In fact, he got so much into this, with such a great degree

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of enthusiasm, DuBose Heyward said when he was chanting

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with those people, it was as though he was one of those. Heywood said,

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"I don't think any other white man in America could have done it."

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Back in New York, Gershwin started pulling together

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his South Carolina research, shaping it into an opera score.

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PIANO PLAYS

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In 1934, he completed one of the first compositions

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for Porgy And Bess at a friend's Manhattan apartment.

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It was a lullaby called Summertime.

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Kay Halle was a friend of Gershwin's.

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She's generally described as a socialite

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and she knew that Gershwin had been working on a couple

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of different versions of the lullaby and none of them really worked

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and he kept scrapping the lullaby and rewriting it, coming up with new ideas for it.

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PIANIST PLAYS SUMMERTIME

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'She came home one night, late at night,

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'and she heard this music coming from her music room.

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'And she said it was so exquisite.'

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Now it sounded as though he'd finally cracked it

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and he'd got the finished version.

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PIANIST PLAYS SUMMERTIME

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'And she said she listened and tears were coursing down her cheeks.'

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Like they say, it was an "A-ha!" moment.

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She said the minute she heard it, she knew what it was going to be.

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The two of them, there was this energy going on,

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this electric connection where the two of them looked at each other

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and realised this was it, this was going to be THE song.

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And that everybody was going to love it.

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I think the phrase she used was,

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"I knew it was going to be beloved by the world."

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# Summertime

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# And the living is easy... #

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Fancy being the first person, apart from Gershwin,

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to hear Summertime.

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# And the cotton is high... #

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# In olden days

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# A glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking

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# Now, God knows

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# Anything goes... #

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In October 1935, Broadway's Alvin Theatre had just finished

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a hugely successful run of Cole Porter's musical, Anything Goes.

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# Anything goes. #

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It was here at the Alvin, not in a grand opera house,

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that Gershwin now presented his daring new work, Porgy And Bess.

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Even more radically,

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it was performed by a classically-trained all-black cast.

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And on the first night,

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as the curtain rose in front of an unsuspecting audience,

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the first vocal performance heard

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was the opening aria, Summertime.

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# One of these mornings

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# You're gonna rise up singing

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# Then you'll spread your wings

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# And you'll take to the sky... #

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'It's sung by a young mother to her child. It's a lullaby.

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'It's the end of a swelteringly hot day.

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'It's early bedtime for this child that must go to sleep

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'as the late afternoon is beginning to give way to the evening.'

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And the song has something that is wonderfully languid about it.

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Something that is languid because there has been sweltering heat.

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# S-u-u-u-u-u-u-mmertime... #

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There's also something plangent about it.

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There's something in the musical line

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that touches on melancholy.

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Oh, the love of the mother, cradling the child,

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and therefore a kind of sadness that the child is going to go to sleep.

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And...

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a kind of sadness that the child, one day, is going to grow up and...

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..leave the coop, is going to fly away

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but that's also going to be wonderful.

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But despite its apparent simplicity,

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Summertime had hidden depths.

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We might ask ourselves, why is Summertime actually in a minor key?

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HE PLAYS A MINOR CHORD

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A very sad-sounding key, a minor key, because, after all,

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if you look at the lyric here, there's nothing but good news for the baby here.

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The fish are jumping, there's...

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The cotton is high, your daddy's rich,

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your mum's good-looking. This is not a threatening lyric.

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All of this is positive and yet...

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HE PLAYS MINOR CHORD

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..it's written in this bluesy, minor key.

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Since the mid-1920's, George Gershwin's brother, Ira,

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had often collaborated with him.

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Ira wrote the snappy, urbane lyrics to many classic Gershwin compositions.

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including 'S Wonderful.

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# 'S wonderful

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# 'S marvellous

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# That you should care for me

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# 'S awful nice

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# 'S paradise... #

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George and Ira Gershwin, as well as DuBose Heyward,

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were all credited with writing Summertime,

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but this composition was believed to be much more the work

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of just George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward.

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'If Ira had worked on it, it would have had some of his wit,

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'some of his energy, some of his sort of, verbal magic'

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which it doesn't. The fact that Summertime works so well is because it doesn't have any of those things.

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# And the living is easy... #

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'Heyward wrote the lyrics first.'

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Ira Gershwin edited it slightly.

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He took out a couple of conjunctions and sort of just gave it a more

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firm poetic grounding, but Ira said, "DuBose Heyward is a poet, I'm not. And this is poetry."

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# ..is high... #

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There's a thousand images - millions, probably -

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that could have been chosen to start this poem,

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to describe Summertime and there's just two -

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fish jumping and cotton high.

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And how the writer has put these two things together

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so that they work in the minds of everybody who reads them,

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it's the sign of great lyrics.

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# Hush, little baby

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# Don't you cry. #

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# It ain't necessarily so

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# It ain't necessarily so

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# The things that you're liable

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# To read in the Bible

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# It ain't necessarily so... #

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In 1935, the original Broadway run of Porgy And Bess,

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despite, or because of, its innovations, confused critics at the time,

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and it was not the triumph Gershwin had so hoped for.

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It ran, Porgy And Bess, initially

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for, I think, 128 performances, which is marvellous for an opera.

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You'd have to do it at the opera house many seasons

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but it was not a big success in terms of a run on Broadway.

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And he was very disappointed.

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He lost all the money that he'd invested,

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including the copying of parts and everything

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and it never made money for him in his lifetime.

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Just two years after Summertime was first performed on Broadway,

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George Gershwin started to experience severe headaches and blackouts.

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These were the first signs of a fatal brain tumour

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that would soon kill him.

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The saddest and most poignant thing, of course, about the Gershwin story

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is that he died 11 weeks short of his 39th birthday.

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He was among that hapless group of composers, Mozart and Schubert

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and Mendelssohn and Bellini, Chopin,

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who never got to their 40th birthday, even, at the height of his powers.

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George Gershwin died on 11th July, 1937.

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He would never know how immortal Summertime would become.

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Summertime might have remained an aria in a forgotten opera.

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But something happened that set it on the road to global recognition.

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It occurred, not in the glittering neon world of Broadway,

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but in one of New York's poorest neighbourhoods - Harlem.

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Harlem was the heart of New York's black community

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and fast becoming the spiritual home of jazz.

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At first, many Harlem jazz musicians had been offended by Porgy And Bess.

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Duke Ellington declared that this black-inspired opera

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written by three white men was "not in the Negro idiom."

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'I can understand people being jealous of Gershwin'

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because when you're as good as Gershwin was,

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jealousy is just an automatic thing.

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JAZZ INTERPRETATION OF "SUMMERTIME"

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One young singer dared to disagree with Duke Ellington.

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She was the child of a broken home called Eleanora Fagan.

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But the world would come to know her as Billie Holiday.

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# Summertime

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# And the living is easy

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# Fish are jumping

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# And the cotton is high... #

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She recognised that this operatic aria, Summertime,

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could be transformed into a jazz tune.

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Billie's hot, bluesy version hit the charts in 1936

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and was crucial in launching her solo career.

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# ..little baby, don't you cry... #

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'Billie holiday made the first'

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pop...that's to say recorded by someone not in any way

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associated with the show, and she makes it swing.

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She's got a big drum vamp going on,

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and yet it's one of the definitive recordings of it.

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So it lends itself to the artist,

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and Gershwin, unlike some of his colleagues,

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loved the liberties that great jazz and popular musicians would take with his music.

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He had no problem with that at all.

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# There's nothing can harm you

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# With daddy and... #

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Billie Holiday recorded Summertime

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when America was in the middle of the Great Depression.

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25% of the US population was unemployed.

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Black Americans suffered terribly,

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and Billie Holiday's Summertime captured their anger.

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'This line, "Your daddy's rich and your mamma's good-looking" is the ultimate.

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'And what's so wonderful about it is saying to this baby,'

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in the world where we live in, in the world that I want for you,

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this is what I want for you,

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'in this era when no-one has any money, no-one has anything.'

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# One of these mornings

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# You're going to rise up singing

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# Then you'll spread your wings

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# And you'll take to the sky... #

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'I always thought that her version,'

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it's faster and it's a little more severe

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than we're used to hearing the song in the show itself.

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It's a lot less like a lullaby.

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'One way to look at it, she's not just singing a baby to sleep,

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'but she's encouraging a race of people to wake up.'

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'There had been riots in a Harlem, where people were protesting

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'against places where they couldn't go.

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'And because this was the '30s, because it was the Depression,

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'that was all very much in people's consciousness.'

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Billie would have sung it that way.

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That's how she was, that's how she'd have swung it.

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BEBOP JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

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Billie Holiday had brilliantly adapted Summertime into jazz.

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But this music was about to be radically updated during World War Two

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when a new breed of black musician forged a revolutionary sound.

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Bebop.

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Charlie Parker was THE icon of this fast,

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frenetic style, whose spiky rhythm shocked many jazz lovers.

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HE PLAYS BEPOP

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But his 1949 recording, Parker With Strings,

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was an attempt to make bebop more palatable to a wider audience.

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On this album, Parker decided to record a version of Summertime.

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CHARLIE PARKER PLAYS "SUMMERTIME"

0:22:460:22:49

'People like Charlie Parker,'

0:23:060:23:07

they weren't thinking about covering something,

0:23:070:23:10

they were playing something because they liked it,

0:23:100:23:13

because people asked them to play it all the time.

0:23:130:23:16

Because it provided them with a...

0:23:160:23:20

a bridge to the audience.

0:23:200:23:22

'Parker stays fairly close to the melody, but he plays it'

0:23:260:23:30

with an incredible ebullience.

0:23:300:23:33

I mean, there's no other recording even now that's quite like Parker's.

0:23:330:23:37

'He plays it with a sense of triumph.

0:23:470:23:50

'It's not so much a lullaby, but it's a kind of expression

0:23:500:23:53

'of liberation, this sense that the song is not so much'

0:23:530:23:57

"Go to sleep, darling",

0:23:570:23:59

but, "We are marching into the next world here."

0:23:590:24:04

With Summertime now given such a significant blessing by the bebop king, Charlie Parker,

0:24:150:24:21

other jazz instrumentalists, like Art Pepper,

0:24:210:24:25

Chet Baker,

0:24:250:24:28

John Coltrane,

0:24:280:24:31

and Bill Evans followed his lead.

0:24:310:24:35

All helped establish Summertime as a classic jazz standard.

0:24:350:24:38

JAZZ INTERPRETATION OF "SUMMERTIME"

0:24:380:24:42

'I think, as an instrumentalist, when you approach a piece,

0:25:330:25:37

'a classic like this, which has such a strong lyric,

0:25:370:25:39

'that has such a strong melody,

0:25:390:25:43

'you're able to explore it in other ways.'

0:25:430:25:46

Sometimes in ways that the vocalist wouldn't explore.

0:25:480:25:51

They wouldn't bend certain melodies

0:25:510:25:53

in the way that we would as instrumentalists do.

0:25:530:25:55

'As a kind of jazz standard, it is the basis'

0:26:040:26:07

for a lot of people doing improvising around it,

0:26:070:26:10

and if this was some incredibly complicated melody,

0:26:100:26:12

it would leave very little room for that kind of improvisation and embellishment.

0:26:120:26:17

'The lyric is in your head all the time.

0:26:220:26:25

'And that's actually why I like instrumental versions

0:26:250:26:29

'because I know the lyric. There are only a very few lines to this song'

0:26:290:26:32

but when you hear an instrumentalist taking that melody

0:26:320:26:35

and doing something with it, as Miles does,

0:26:350:26:37

playing a wonderful improvisation on it,

0:26:370:26:40

then you just...you have that in your consciousness already.

0:26:400:26:43

MILES DAVIS' INTERPRETATION OF "SUMMERTIME"

0:26:430:26:48

Miles Davis included his interpretation of Summertime

0:27:000:27:04

on his 1958 Porgy And Bess album.

0:27:040:27:07

'When Miles Davis did Summertime,

0:27:080:27:11

'it's the perfect soundtrack'

0:27:110:27:13

for a car ride somewhere in the summer.

0:27:130:27:16

'Summertime does seem sort of autobiographical for Miles.

0:27:250:27:27

'His daddy was rich and his ma was good-looking.'

0:27:270:27:30

'But, for the most part, it's an instrumental'

0:27:300:27:33

version that explores the music that Gershwin wrote.

0:27:330:27:38

'It's the most vocalised playing he had done on recording up to that time

0:27:440:27:48

'and very rarely afterwards does he equal it.

0:27:480:27:51

'And he said it was some of the hardest playing he ever did

0:27:510:27:55

'because he felt he had to convey'

0:27:550:27:57

the meaning of Summertime, the lyric of Summertime.

0:27:570:28:00

It has a wonderful kind of lightness about it.

0:28:080:28:11

It seems to float above the ground, but it's not

0:28:110:28:14

a portrait of the South, nor is it a portrait of life in New York.

0:28:140:28:18

It's Miles producing something intangible, it's indefinable.

0:28:180:28:24

-# I wouldn't have left no gate

-Yeah

0:28:310:28:33

-# Bobby's hen pickled in a grate

-Yeah

0:28:330:28:35

# Keep your eyes on the prize

0:28:350:28:40

# Hold on, hold on... #

0:28:400:28:43

In the mid-1950s, the cry for civil rights intensified

0:28:430:28:47

as black Americans embraced a strategy of non-violent direct action.

0:28:470:28:53

# Keep your eyes on the prize Hold on, hold on... #

0:28:530:28:58

Few would have guessed that Summertime would play a role in this movement.

0:28:580:29:01

Gospel music gave the civil rights struggle much of its moral strength

0:29:010:29:05

and the Queen Of Gospel, Mahalia Jackson,

0:29:050:29:08

recognised Summertime as a hymn to a better life for her people.

0:29:080:29:14

# Summertime

0:29:140:29:18

# And the living is easy

0:29:200:29:27

# Fish are jumping

0:29:310:29:36

# And the cotton is high... #

0:29:390:29:43

It's about the civil rights' struggle.

0:29:430:29:46

Hush, little baby, don't you cry.

0:29:460:29:49

It's about, we're going to survive, we're going to win.

0:29:490:29:52

We're gonna overcome this

0:29:520:29:54

and so this song became an anthem, of a sort.

0:29:540:29:58

# Oh, your daddy is rich

0:29:580:30:04

# And your ma is good-lookin'... #

0:30:040:30:11

But Mahalia Jackson did something extraordinary with Summertime.

0:30:130:30:18

She recorded it as medley, pairing it with Motherless Child,

0:30:180:30:23

a black spiritual about a baby who has nothing.

0:30:230:30:28

# One of these mornings

0:30:280:30:30

# You gonna rise up singing... #

0:30:330:30:40

She almost never sang anything that wasn't a religious song.

0:30:400:30:44

So, when you're her and you choose to sing Summertime

0:30:480:30:52

and connect it to... Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

0:30:520:30:56

see, that's a big one there.

0:30:560:30:58

See, that's fairly heavy.

0:30:580:31:00

Mahalia Jackson was from Chicago.

0:31:000:31:04

Her version of Summertime was affected by a tragic murder

0:31:040:31:08

that rocked the city's black population in 1955.

0:31:080:31:13

At that time, a young southsider, named Emmett Till,

0:31:130:31:17

had gone to Mississippi to visit his relatives

0:31:170:31:20

and we don't know what happened.

0:31:200:31:22

Either he looked at a white woman,

0:31:220:31:26

maybe said a wise crack.

0:31:260:31:28

Anyway, he wound up in the Pearl River, dead.

0:31:280:31:32

# Like a motherless child

0:31:320:31:38

# Sometimes I feel

0:31:420:31:50

# Like a motherless child... #

0:31:500:31:55

Mahalia Jackson recorded her version of Summertime in 1956,

0:31:560:32:01

a year after Emmett Till's murder.

0:32:010:32:03

# ..like a motherless child... #

0:32:070:32:12

So, she's mourning the fact that...

0:32:140:32:17

When you hear about Emmett Till, it brings all the terror back.

0:32:170:32:21

It brings back the depression.

0:32:210:32:24

It brings back the fear.

0:32:240:32:25

# But till that morning

0:32:250:32:35

# Nothing will harm you... #

0:32:350:32:41

Through melding those two songs together,

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she says, "White America, you see the fish hop, you see all that.

0:32:440:32:51

"And the cotton is high, let me tell you what's inside that cotton field.

0:32:510:32:55

"Let me tell you what it looks like in there."

0:32:550:32:57

So, Mahalia sees inside that cotton patch.

0:32:570:33:02

She sees a corpse, because, that's what would have been in there.

0:33:020:33:07

# Well, Summertime

0:33:130:33:17

# And the living is easy

0:33:170:33:21

# Fish are jumping

0:33:210:33:26

# And the cotton is high

0:33:260:33:30

# Your daddy's rich

0:33:310:33:35

# And your mommy's good-lookin'... #

0:33:350:33:37

By the late 1950s, Summertime had been recorded in all styles of black music,

0:33:370:33:43

jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues.

0:33:430:33:47

# One of these mornings

0:33:470:33:50

# You're gonna jump up and sing

0:33:500:33:53

# Then you spread your wings

0:33:530:33:57

# And you take to the sky

0:33:570:34:01

# Until that morning there is nothing... #

0:34:010:34:06

It's got to be rare that somebody can write a song

0:34:060:34:10

about another race, and then the people from that race

0:34:100:34:15

start to own the song

0:34:150:34:17

because it is so like who and what they are.

0:34:170:34:21

For many, the ultimate version of Summertime was by the first lady of song, Ella Fitzgerald.

0:34:230:34:30

# Summertime... #

0:34:300:34:33

APPLAUSE

0:34:330:34:37

# And the living is easy

0:34:410:34:46

# Fish are jumping... #

0:34:520:34:56

There is a clarity about the way she sings.

0:34:580:35:01

You can read so much into the song.

0:35:010:35:03

In its way, it's a perfect...

0:35:040:35:07

Her performance is as perfect as it can be.

0:35:070:35:10

# Your daddy's rich... #

0:35:100:35:16

After George Gershwin's death,

0:35:160:35:19

his brother, Ira, had continued writing lyrics for movie scores and Broadway musicals.

0:35:190:35:24

He once admitted, "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them."

0:35:240:35:31

You can always tell a great jazz artist if they can take a standard and make it their own.

0:35:360:35:42

If you hear Ella perform this, it's as if she wrote it.

0:35:420:35:46

She really owned that song.

0:35:460:35:48

# One of these mornings

0:35:480:35:53

# You're gonna rise up singing... #

0:35:550:36:01

Ella's recording was a crossover hit

0:36:040:36:06

wowing white as well as black audiences.

0:36:060:36:10

George Gershwin was now considered one of the great American composers

0:36:100:36:14

and Porgy And Bess was finally experiencing long overdue acclaim.

0:36:140:36:20

This started with a Gershwin biopic, Rhapsody In Blue,

0:36:210:36:25

which featured a Porgy And Bess sequence.

0:36:250:36:28

# Summertime and the living is easy... #

0:36:280:36:33

The opera's reputation steadily grew, and in 1959

0:36:390:36:43

was made into a Hollywood blockbuster by Otto Preminger.

0:36:430:36:47

But just when Summertime had climbed the dizzy heights

0:36:500:36:54

of both the jazz and opera worlds,

0:36:540:36:56

its hard-won status was now threatened by a brand-new sound.

0:36:560:37:00

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog

0:37:000:37:04

# Crying all the time

0:37:040:37:06

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog

0:37:060:37:09

# Crying all the time

0:37:090:37:12

# Well, you never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine... #

0:37:120:37:17

In the mid-1950s, singers like Elvis Presley revolutionised the American musical landscape,

0:37:170:37:24

turning white teenagers on to black rhythms.

0:37:240:37:28

# Yeah, you ain't never caught a rabbit

0:37:280:37:30

# And you ain't no friend of mine... #

0:37:300:37:34

Yet, incredibly, Summertime would do what no other jazz standard would do...

0:37:370:37:43

It fitted in with rock and roll.

0:37:430:37:45

# Summertime

0:37:450:37:47

# And the living is easy... #

0:37:470:37:50

Summertime was a song that early rock and roll singers could perform,

0:37:500:37:56

in their own style, and yet establish a relationship with an earlier generation.

0:37:560:38:01

# And your ma is good-lookin'

0:38:010:38:04

# So, hush little baby

0:38:040:38:08

# Don't you cry... #

0:38:080:38:11

Well, Gene Vincent and Ricky Nelson

0:38:110:38:14

had a huge effect on British bands in the early '60s.

0:38:140:38:18

# You're gonna spread your wings

0:38:180:38:21

# And take to the sky... #

0:38:210:38:22

Ricky Nelson was a particular favourite of mine.

0:38:220:38:26

I really liked his voice.

0:38:260:38:28

His version is one where he sticks very close to the melody.

0:38:280:38:31

It just works.

0:38:310:38:33

# And daddy and mommy They're standing by... #

0:38:330:38:37

In 1965, The Zombies, from St Albans,

0:38:380:38:42

were one of the very first rock groups to cover Summertime.

0:38:420:38:46

I was familiar with the song, but I don't know anything its history.

0:38:470:38:51

It was just this arrangement that interested us and interested me.

0:38:510:38:56

It was an opportunity to do something that was different

0:38:560:38:59

to what many of the bands were playing at the time.

0:38:590:39:02

It was something which gave us an opportunity to improvise

0:39:020:39:05

and the mood was fantastic.

0:39:050:39:07

# It's summertime

0:39:110:39:14

# And the living is easy... #

0:39:140:39:18

We were playing in clubs and pubs and we got a great reaction.

0:39:180:39:24

I think it was quite brave of us to play it in a rock environment.

0:39:240:39:29

It's surprised me even that to the present day.

0:39:290:39:32

You can still play soft ballads to people if they are good ballads.

0:39:320:39:36

# Why don't you hush, pretty baby

0:39:360:39:38

# Don't you cry... #

0:39:380:39:43

I loved the construction of the song.

0:39:430:39:45

Gershwin totally understands what it is to write a song, to produce music.

0:39:450:39:51

On the feeling level, on the slightly magical level,

0:39:510:39:54

where, if you write a song, you reach out and grab something.

0:39:540:39:58

He has reached out and grabbed that.

0:39:580:40:00

That is something that people universally tap into.

0:40:000:40:04

The British invasion of America in the mid-1960s

0:40:080:40:11

was spearheaded by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

0:40:110:40:15

The Zombies were very much a part of this invasion

0:40:160:40:19

and helped popularise Summertime with a new generation of American teenagers.

0:40:190:40:25

I'd like to think that The Zombies did contribute to the mystique

0:40:250:40:29

and the popularity of Summertime.

0:40:290:40:32

We always included it in our repertoire when we were playing,

0:40:320:40:35

especially in America.

0:40:350:40:38

I think a lot of young people in America would have been introduced to that song,

0:40:380:40:41

that perhaps wouldn't have heard it in any other way.

0:40:410:40:45

# Summertime... #

0:40:590:41:03

As the '60s progressed, it became increasingly apparent

0:41:030:41:06

that Summertime could be interpreted from some very different perspectives.

0:41:060:41:10

# Fish are jumping

0:41:130:41:17

# And the cotton is high... #

0:41:170:41:22

The Julie London record is clearly a romantic

0:41:220:41:24

interpretation of Summertime.

0:41:240:41:26

A seductive interpretation, not at all maternal.

0:41:260:41:28

This is not a woman trying to get a baby to go to sleep,

0:41:280:41:32

She's trying to get somebody to go to bed, but not to sleep.

0:41:320:41:35

It's a "come on" song to a lover.

0:41:410:41:43

It's sensuous, very laid-back, it's witty.

0:41:430:41:47

It's lithe and, in its way, it's just as authentic.

0:41:470:41:50

It's still the song.

0:41:500:41:52

It's not that she's turned it into something else,

0:41:520:41:55

she's just found another place to go with it.

0:41:550:41:57

She totally made it because of her looks

0:41:590:42:02

and because she looks so glamorous and so hot.

0:42:020:42:04

She's on every album cover, posing seductively.

0:42:040:42:09

A lot of men and boys bought those covers because of the images.

0:42:090:42:13

When you got home and played the records, she really delivers.

0:42:130:42:16

She's not a tease.

0:42:160:42:18

# ..standing by... #

0:42:180:42:24

Now...

0:42:240:42:26

Zip me up.

0:42:260:42:28

Summertime's roots within a 1930s opera were now so distant

0:42:350:42:39

that in the flowering mid-'60s music scene of San Francisco,

0:42:390:42:43

it was believed by many to be a traditional folk song.

0:42:430:42:47

# Yes, summertime

0:42:470:42:49

# And the livin' is so easy... #

0:42:550:43:01

I'd wager everyone in Big Brother & The Holding Company

0:43:010:43:03

thought of that as a folk song.

0:43:030:43:06

There had just been this folk revival shortly before that.

0:43:060:43:10

They were used to playing that song in coffee houses.

0:43:100:43:13

I doubt that they thought of it as a jazz song or an opera song.

0:43:130:43:17

I think they thought of it as a folk song, like House Of The Rising Sun.

0:43:170:43:22

# Your daddy's rich... #

0:43:230:43:26

In 1966, Janis Joplin joined the San Francisco rock band,

0:43:290:43:33

Big Brother & The Holding Company.

0:43:330:43:36

They recorded one of the most celebrated versions of Summertime

0:43:360:43:41

that included a new introduction by Sam Andrew.

0:43:410:43:44

Bach has a prelude that starts up. He has this thing and it goes...

0:43:530:43:57

HE SINGS THE TUNE

0:43:570:44:01

It's a very typical Bach motif.

0:44:010:44:04

So I just slowed that down.

0:44:040:44:07

It's exactly that and I slowed it way down

0:44:070:44:10

and used that as kind of a motivating force for Summertime.

0:44:100:44:15

INTRODUCTION PLAYS

0:44:150:44:19

Summertime is such a great song.

0:44:230:44:26

It was something Janis loved to sing.

0:44:260:44:30

# Summertime, time, time, time

0:44:300:44:36

# Time

0:44:360:44:39

# For livin' easy... #

0:44:390:44:43

She sang the song to herself. I think she was rocking herself.

0:44:450:44:49

She was singing a lullaby to herself

0:44:490:44:51

but she was also singing it to the universe, to the audience.

0:44:510:44:56

She was reassuring them.

0:44:560:44:58

This is a song that will calm people because it is a lullaby.

0:44:580:45:03

# Your daddy's rich

0:45:030:45:09

# And your ma's

0:45:090:45:12

# So good looking, babe... #

0:45:120:45:15

Janis Joplin's voice has always been a voice that haunts me

0:45:150:45:18

every time I listened to it

0:45:180:45:20

because there is something in her voice

0:45:200:45:23

that makes me feel like she knew she was not going to last long.

0:45:230:45:29

And every minute, every second she'd got to give it all.

0:45:290:45:33

And she was able to do a version of Summertime

0:45:330:45:38

that would keep the lullaby part of it,

0:45:380:45:40

keep everything we've said before but with her urgency to it.

0:45:400:45:44

# Whoa

0:45:440:45:50

# One of these mornings

0:45:500:45:53

# Shine, your eyes upset, baby

0:45:530:45:59

# I said you're gonna go

0:46:030:46:06

# Honey, gonna spread your wings

0:46:060:46:09

# Gonna take, take to... #

0:46:090:46:12

If you don't enjoy summertime while you are alive, shame on you.

0:46:120:46:18

I'm telling you, just embrace life in summer or any other time.

0:46:180:46:23

That's what her version makes me feel like. Gives me goosebumps.

0:46:230:46:26

She mines a particular quality of the song most people left behind.

0:46:260:46:31

Even though I find her performance painful in many respects,

0:46:310:46:34

because her voice was so stretched out of shape,

0:46:340:46:37

and that's the blues quality.

0:46:370:46:39

I mean, she sings it as the blues.

0:46:390:46:42

She screeches at the top. Almost, it's Summertime in extremis.

0:46:420:46:47

# Your dad's rich

0:46:470:46:53

# And your ma's good-looking, baby... #

0:46:550:47:02

As well as performing it live, Big Brother & The Holding Company

0:47:020:47:06

included Summertime on their number one album, Cheap Thrills.

0:47:060:47:10

This was one of the biggest-selling records in America in 1968

0:47:100:47:15

and gave Summertime a massive new audience.

0:47:150:47:19

The LP cover was designed by the cartoonist Robert Crumb.

0:47:190:47:23

The idea behind his Summertime illustration,

0:47:230:47:26

with its image of a black maid with a white baby,

0:47:260:47:29

was to satirise white stereotypes of African-Americans,

0:47:290:47:33

but it still offended some.

0:47:330:47:34

The Black Panthers were really upset about that depiction

0:47:420:47:46

and they black-balled the album.

0:47:460:47:49

They hated that depiction.

0:47:490:47:52

I guess it's like this negro mammy.

0:47:520:47:55

She's holding this white baby.

0:47:550:47:57

It's upsetting.

0:47:570:47:59

In America, the summers of the 1960s

0:48:060:48:09

were intimately related to love-ins and flower power,

0:48:090:48:12

and Janis Joplin's version of Summertime

0:48:120:48:14

fed into that notion of a beautiful, psychedelic summer.

0:48:140:48:19

But the summers of the 1960s for many black Americans

0:48:220:48:26

were the long, hot summers of rage.

0:48:260:48:28

Again, it's a characteristic of the song that,

0:48:440:48:49

not only can it withstand those different treatments,

0:48:490:48:51

it has been treated in those different ways

0:48:510:48:54

with some very dark, negative,

0:48:540:48:57

broken versions of Summer.

0:48:570:48:59

Albert Ayler's tense, discordant version of Summertime

0:49:030:49:07

perfectly encapsulated the black American mood of anger

0:49:070:49:11

and disaffection in the 1960s.

0:49:110:49:13

Summertime meant to black people,

0:49:190:49:21

how many black people are going to be killed by police this year?

0:49:210:49:25

How many rednecks are going to murder somebody?

0:49:250:49:29

How many churches are going to be bombed?

0:49:290:49:32

How many demonstrations are going to be had in which people are going to

0:49:320:49:37

act towards their fellow citizens

0:49:370:49:41

like wild dogs?

0:49:410:49:44

DISCORDANT JAZZ VERSION OF "SUMMERTIME"

0:49:440:49:46

Albert Ayler is saying, "Uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh,

0:49:590:50:02

"I don't want you to get it.

0:50:020:50:05

"I want you to be irritated.

0:50:050:50:06

"I want you to be upset because in the upset and irritation,

0:50:060:50:09

"you can see what people are saying.

0:50:090:50:12

"They're saying no.

0:50:120:50:13

"And this, I'm saying no to the beauty of Summertime."

0:50:130:50:16

# Summertime

0:50:240:50:30

# And the living is easy

0:50:300:50:35

# Fish are jumping

0:50:390:50:44

# And the cotton is high... #

0:50:440:50:50

At the end of the 1960s, Summertime was everywhere in America,

0:50:510:50:57

three decades since its birth.

0:50:570:51:00

# ..and your ma is... #

0:51:000:51:01

It was now set for world domination.

0:51:010:51:05

# Summertime

0:51:050:51:10

# And the living is easy... #

0:51:100:51:15

Starting in the 1950s and '60s,

0:51:150:51:17

musicians in the Caribbean picked up on Summertime.

0:51:170:51:22

The song travelled to Havana...

0:51:220:51:24

# Well, your daddy's rich... #

0:51:240:51:26

There's a wonderful version by a Cuban singer called Enrique Herrera.

0:51:260:51:29

Just with conga drums.

0:51:290:51:32

Just voice and congas, very elemental.

0:51:320:51:34

But it's very, very powerful indeed.

0:51:340:51:37

Summertime also entered Puerto Rico.

0:51:370:51:40

You could feel the heat of the beach and the heat of the Afro-Cuban rhythms of the congas of Africa even.

0:51:440:51:49

Latin music in general is a very happy kind of music, very danceable.

0:51:490:51:55

This song fits right into that category.

0:51:550:51:57

Summertime travelled to Trinidad.

0:51:590:52:03

It's really African-based and it's African, even though

0:52:030:52:07

it's written by a Jewish man, it's really an African-based song

0:52:070:52:12

and Latin rhythms just fell into this naturally.

0:52:120:52:14

And on to Jamaica.

0:52:160:52:18

REGGAE VERSION OF SUMMERTIME PLAYS

0:52:180:52:22

Every culture has their folk music so, if you look at reggae music

0:52:220:52:26

which is all about survival,

0:52:260:52:28

all about the voice

0:52:280:52:30

of the underdog, erm...

0:52:300:52:33

a song like Summertime is particularly relevant.

0:52:330:52:36

# One of these mornings...

0:52:360:52:41

# You're gonna rise up singing... #

0:52:410:52:45

In the early '70s BB Seaton cut his reggae version of Summertime in Kingston, Jamaica.

0:52:450:52:51

The melody is so relaxed that you could go to sleep singing it.

0:52:560:53:01

Putting it on a reggae rhythm, I think that gave it life.

0:53:010:53:05

You know, I mean, because when I was singing it I remember the beat,

0:53:050:53:08

you know, it was so pulsating,

0:53:080:53:10

that I was actually floating on top of the rhythm,

0:53:100:53:13

with that melody.

0:53:130:53:14

# ..with your daddy

0:53:140:53:17

# Sta-a-a-anding by... #

0:53:170:53:21

From Jamaica, Summertime breezed on down through the Tropics

0:53:210:53:25

to Rio de Janeiro.

0:53:250:53:27

For this song to have had quite such an extraordinary ability

0:53:310:53:35

to remain with us and to be transformed and to be played

0:53:350:53:38

and sung by so many people it has to have these very adaptable qualities.

0:53:380:53:43

I think it's the adaptability of it that is perhaps at the root of

0:53:430:53:47

the fact it's become quite so pervasive in our culture.

0:53:470:53:50

SINGING IN HINDUSTANI

0:53:500:53:54

As the 20th century became the 21st,

0:54:000:54:03

musicians as far as India were now interpreting Summertime.

0:54:030:54:07

Amit Chaudhuri from Mumbai recognised that he could work

0:54:110:54:14

Summertime's languid lullaby qualities into India's classical music.

0:54:140:54:20

Indian music and the way you improvise in Indian music

0:54:230:54:26

allows you - often demands - that you slow down the tempo.

0:54:260:54:30

To make those improvisations possible.

0:54:300:54:33

That slowing down of the tempo,

0:54:330:54:35

which I have in my version,

0:54:350:54:37

also kind of nicely fits in with the idea of sleep.

0:54:370:54:42

There's something simple about the scales and about the song.

0:54:450:54:49

I think that's why it continues, its life continues.

0:54:490:54:52

# Oooh-oooh... #

0:54:520:54:56

SINGING IN FON

0:54:560:54:58

Angelique Kidjo is from the West African nation of Benin.

0:54:580:55:02

When she recorded her version of Summertime, she sang the song's lyrics in Benin's language - Fon.

0:55:020:55:09

SHE SINGS IN FON

0:55:090:55:14

You cannot translate English into Fon literally.

0:55:180:55:22

It doesn't work, because it's a language that paints a picture for you.

0:55:220:55:26

SHE SPEAKS FON

0:55:260:55:28

..which means Summertime.

0:55:280:55:30

It translates as Summertime but it means when the heat time comes.

0:55:300:55:36

Your daddy's rich and your ma is good-looking -

0:55:400:55:43

I say that in my language by saying that...

0:55:430:55:47

..your father have wealth.

0:55:480:55:50

It's not richness.

0:55:500:55:51

The wealth is the knowledge of life and your mom is good-looking,

0:55:510:55:55

your mother have such a beautiful soul.

0:55:550:55:58

So I take it from what Gershwin wrote to the reality of Africans.

0:55:580:56:02

Great songs that transcend all styles, languages, nationalities

0:56:150:56:20

have a beautiful simplicity at their very heart.

0:56:200:56:24

Summertime shares this quality with the other two most-covered songs in the world -

0:56:240:56:30

My Way and Yesterday.

0:56:300:56:33

A really good song touches people.

0:56:340:56:37

It means something to people and in this case it's meant something

0:56:370:56:42

to millions of people and all three of those songs on their own

0:56:420:56:45

level work like that, whether you prefer one more than the other,

0:56:450:56:49

they all just touch people.

0:56:490:56:52

Summertime's global appeal is also due to its brilliant ability

0:56:550:57:00

to trigger personal emotions in us all.

0:57:000:57:04

This song works if you're having a wonderful time

0:57:040:57:08

and if you're celebrating somewhere.

0:57:080:57:10

Or if you're having quite a bad time and you want summer.

0:57:110:57:16

You know, if you want to be looked after, this song is great,

0:57:160:57:19

and if you feel lost, this song is great.

0:57:190:57:22

It's extraordinary.

0:57:220:57:25

Today, Summertime is the most covered song on the planet.

0:57:250:57:30

Over 25,000 versions exist.

0:57:300:57:34

But more importantly,

0:57:350:57:37

Summertime is one of the most loved melodies in the world.

0:57:370:57:41

As George Gershwin's friend Kay Halle predicted it would

0:57:410:57:45

become when she first heard it all the way back in 1934.

0:57:450:57:49

People on the street, you can stop them and they've heard of Summertime.

0:57:500:57:53

They probably haven't heard of something written two or three years ago.

0:57:530:57:57

They probably couldn't name some Madonna song from 2005.

0:57:570:58:01

They probably couldn't name three Lady Gaga songs but they all know what Summertime is.

0:58:010:58:05

Summertime has magically tapped into something deep inside us all.

0:58:070:58:12

Nostalgia and innocence, sadness and joy,

0:58:120:58:15

and our intrinsic desire for freedom.

0:58:150:58:19

Summertime is a state of mind.

0:58:220:58:25

Everybody has got a Summertime somewhere.

0:58:250:58:28

Everybody knows what that means.

0:58:280:58:30

There's something about that song that makes people feel more free

0:58:340:58:38

when they're playing it and when they're listening to it.

0:58:380:58:41

I think that's the greatest achievement of all.

0:58:410:58:44

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:59:060:59:09

E-mail [email protected]

0:59:090:59:12

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