in the summertime

Random Runners-Up: ‘The Pushbike Song’, by The Mixtures

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

As part of our drive to diversify, I’m going to start sprinkling my ‘Random Runners-Up’ at fittingly random points in the schedule (as opposed to devoting a week to them every year), and also tying them to the date on which I’m posting. And so, at number two in the charts on this day fifty-four years ago, we have something that sounds a little familiar…

The Pushbike Song, by The Mixtures

#2 for 4 weeks, from 31st January – 28th February 1971

The percussion and proto-beatboxing that the Mixtures, an Australian band, use here are the spit of Mungo Jerry’s monster hit from the previous year, ‘In the Summertime’. To complicate matters further, the Mixtures had already had a huge hit in their homeland with a cover of ‘In the Summertime’. (Their version had in fact knocked Mungo Jerry’s off number one). This was apparently brought about by a ‘pay for play’ dispute between Aussie broadcasters and record labels, leading to a surge of copycat cover versions of popular hits.

But what this tune lacks in originality, it makes up in catchy enthusiasm. The British public clearly enjoyed this sound as, fresh from making ‘In the Summertime’ the biggest selling single of 1970, they helped ‘The Pushbike Song’ spend a full month in the runners-up position in February 1971, behind George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’. Incredibly, the record that finally knocked them down to #3 was… ‘Baby Jump’ by Mungo Jerry.

And after all the many rock songs about hot rods and hogs, who would deny the humble pedal bike its moment in the sun? Round, round wheels going round, round, Down up pedals up down… Queen may have since recorded the definitive bike song, but The Mixtures made their own contribution to the cycling canon. They didn’t do much else mind, and are bona fide one-hit wonders on the British chart.

288. ‘In the Summertime’, by Mungo Jerry

/ UK #1s blog / 15 Comments

So we reach one of the most distinctive intros ever. Is it beatboxing? A comb and paper? A kazoo? Uh, ch-ch-ch… Who cares, it’s groovy, silly, fun, and it sets the tone for a brilliant #1 hit.

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In the Summertime, by Mungo Jerry (their 1st of two #1s)

7 weeks, from 7th June – 26th July 1970

Maybe it helps that I’m writing this in the garden on a fine spring afternoon, as the world prepares to tick over into what is hopefully a long, hot summer. But I’m sure that even if I were listening to this on a frigid mid-January’s morn, I’d get that holiday feeling. It’s irresistible – a record that sounds exactly as its title suggests. You can see why it settled in for a long old stretch at the top of the charts over June and July.

In the summertime, When the weather is high, You can stretch right up and touch the sky… It’s a little reggae-ish. There’s a music-hall piano in the mix, and a gentle guitar. Plus all the zzzhhs and the ooops that create the distinctive rhythm. It sounds like lots of things, and yet it’s distinctly original… Wiki lists it as ‘Skiffle’ and, yep, I can see that too… When the weather’s fine, You got women on your mind…

A group of lads, out looking for fun. The lyrics hit a little harder than the carefree beat suggests. Have a drink, Have a drive… (not a line you’d get away with these days, and indeed Shaggy had changed it by the time he took the song back into the Top 5 in the mid-nineties…) Go out and see what you can find…

And then a classic piece of advice: If her daddy’s rich take her out for a meal, If her daddy’s poor just do what you feel… They get away with it, though, by sounding like clumsy kids just looking for a good time. You can imagine them giving a cheeky wink as they sing it, the rascals. Life’s for livin’ that’s our philosophy…

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We get a little break, and some motorbike-revving sound effects thrown into the eclectic mix. Imagine driving along country roads to this, windows down, roof off. I have to admit I thought, right up until now, that the line in the second verse went ‘You can make it really good in the lay-by…’, you know, what with the driving theme. But no, that was just my mind in the gutter as usual. It’s: You can make it, make it good and really fine…

Mungo Jerry were a band led by Ray Dorset and an ever-changing cast of other musicians – even before they’d recorded this, their first hit, the line-up had changed, and it will do so again before their second chart-topper next year. The only thing I really knew about them, prior to writing this, was that Dorset had some spectacular lamb chop side-burns. But, they grew so big so quickly in the summer of 1970 that the phrase ‘Mungomania’ was coined. ‘In the Summertime’ hit #1 in a staggering twenty-six countries! We’ll meet them one more time, like I said, before long.

This is our third ‘summer’ themed number one, after Jerry Keller’s ‘Here Comes Summer’ and Cliff’s ‘Summer Holiday’, but I’d suggest that this is the definitive summer hit, one that still hits the spot fifty years on. Plus, it’s the only one of the three to actually hit #1 in the summer! Uh, ch-ch-ch… Uh, ch-ch-ch…

(EDIT! Having watched this video I’m now convinced that I’m correct on the ‘lay-by’ line! Watch his lips… And, to answer my question from the start – it’s a bottle!)