PBS’s Songs of the Summer is a weirdly fascinating trip that you might call musical alt-history.
Songs of the Summer, a production of PBS’s first-class American Experience series, is only available online, at www.pbs.org/songsofthesummer.
Every Friday through Aug. 18, one new song is posted from a particular summer, with an essay by a songwriter on why that song matters.
Most music fans have seen features like this before, and we all have our own favorite summer songs.
But it’s unlikely any person in the entire universe, no matter how eclectic or catholic their taste, would have come up with the list in this series.
Consider the five songs unveiled so far:
1958: “Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu,” a/k/a “Volare,” by Domenico Modugno (left)
1963: “Sukiyaki” by Kyu Sakamoto
1967: “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)” by Scott McKenzie
1968: “This Guy’s In Love With You” by Herb Alpert
1974: “Rock Your Baby” by George McCrae
Admit it. Would you have guessed maybe one of those? Maybe?
To their credit, the essayists all work hard to explain why these songs had resonance both from their own backstories and for the larger music world.
Sometimes they succeed.
The stories are all interesting enough, though the truth is that almost every popular song has a backstory in its own creation or the culture around it.
In the “Volare” section, for instance – each website entry lists that summer’s top 10 songs – there isn’t a single tune that doesn’t have an interesting story behind it, from “Poor Little Fool” by Ricky Nelson to “Little Star” by the Elegants to Duane Eddy’s “Rebel Rouser.”
But that doesn’t diminish the one that was selected, which is particularly true with “Sukiyaki.”
For those who don’t remember 1963, “Sukiyaki” was a wistful Japanese pop song that Anglo marketers renamed with a word they figured the English-speaking world could at least pronounce, even though it had nothing to do with the song. It was a little like taking “Stardust” and renaming it “Spinach Omelet.”
That aside, essayist Elaine Kathryn Andres explains how the song reflects both the cultural influence of the Americans who occupied Japan after World War II and the growing resentment of the Japanese people over that occupation.
Since most American listeners knew it only as a song they didn’t understand that had a catchy melody, the backstory is worth knowing. Even if Stevie Wonder’s “Fingertips Part 2” or Peter Paul and Mary’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” were stronger musical milestones that summer.
That’s why the whole series is weirdly fascinating. It seems determined to take readers and listeners where they wouldn’t expect to go.
Of course, that concept can be taken to extremes, which is what happens when Keven McAlester tries to make a case for “San Francisco” as a good and important song.
Along the way, McAlester channels some of the final episode of Mad Men, suggesting a song written as a commercial can capture a moment. With Mad Men and that Coke commercial, it worked. With Scott McKenzie (right), no, it doesn’t. Tilt.
The true test of a pop song is how you react when it comes on the radio. That’s particularly true of the car radio in the summer. Do you reach for the volume control to turn it up or the station selector to turn it off?
In the summer of ’67, an amazingly rich three months that featured the likes of Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” and Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl,” Scott McKenzie was an automatic “change the station.” It still is, and no socio-academic argument, however well written, will ever make it a song you want to hear.
On the other hand, focusing on Herb Alpert in 1968 instead of a possible alternative like the Rolling Stones’ “Jumping Jack Flash,” is a more palatable sort of contrarianism.
While essayist Nate Chinen may take a slightly deeper dive than we need, he makes an agreeable case – and equally important, he notes that Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights is an album that no guy who bought popular music in the 1960s will ever forget.
Songs of the Summer has a summer pace. It’s breezy, it’s entertaining, and if all of us don’t agree with every assertion, so what? We’ll have fun, fun, fun ‘til Daddy takes the wifi away.