Summer Songs

Summer approaches, and programmers everywhere will be making up playlists of summer songs.  And there are lots of choice offerings, from what is probably the best known--Gershwin's "Summertime" (and the livin' is easy) to the less familiar, but no less lovely "Summer Song" by Dave and Iola Brubeck (hear Louis Armstrong's tender growl on "Love, to me, is like a summer day").

But the ancestor of all these, and the oldest extant song in English, is "Sumer is Icumen In."

"Sumer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu!
Growep sed and blowep med
and springp pe wde nu.
Sing cuccu!"

Or, in modern English:

"Summer is a-coming in
Loudly sing cuckoo.
Groweth seed and bloweth mead
and springs the wood anew.
Sing cuckoo!"

And then, not far off, are the two best laments for a summer past: "Summer Wind" by Heinz Meier and Johnny Mercer, and "The Things We Did Last Summer" by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn. But it's not now the time for regret and rue, for sumer is icumen in!