Long Weekend Listomania: Special No Climate Change Deniers Aloud! Edition

[Okay, it's Memorial Day, i.e. the official kick-off to summer, so I'm recycling this (I originally posted it in 2009) for obvious reasons. I should add that I've changed a couple of the song selections, and re-written it slightly, just so as not to appear an even bigger slacker than I am. -- S.S.]

Best or Worst Post-Elvis Summer Song -- Which is To Say Either a Song About Summer or One With the Word Summer in the Title!!

Self-explanatory, I think, and in the interest of holiday comity, I'm imposing absolutely no arbitrary rules of any kind.

And my totally top of my head Top Nine would be...

9. Two Live Jews -- Oy, It's So Humid



"Doesn't Myrtle have air conditioning?" "What -- you mean Octagenarian Mutant Ninja Myrtle?..."

8. Graham Gouldman -- Bus Stop



"Bus Stop, wet day, she's there, I say, please share my umbrella...All that summer we enjoyed it, wind and rain and shine..."

And don't tell me about that Rihanna "Umbrella" shit, because I don't want to hear about it.

7. Smashing Pumpkins -- Summer



It occurs to me that Billy Corgan's pretentious cueball noggin has been absent from these precincts for far too long; unfortunately, it's not on display in this particular video. Actually, a pretty nice song, though.

6. The Jamies -- Summertime, Summertime



An arifact that has irked me since the late 50s. It's like a Chimpmunks record, but done straight. Or something. In any case, words can not express how annoying I think those harmonies are.

5. Billy Stewart -- Summertime



The Gershwin song, of course. This is the uncut version of Stewart's soul glossolalia hit, which I had never heard before yesterday. Kudos to whoever the drummer is, BTW.

4. Eddie Cochran -- Summertime Blues



No better rock-and-roll song has ever been written, and no cooler rock singer/guitarist has ever worn shoe leather.

3. Chad and Jeremy -- A Summer Song



I only found out relatively recently that they actually played all the beautiful guitar stuff on this one themselves. Just as sweet and lovely a pop song as there is, so naturally, my crappy high school rock band used to sing it as "Planes, crashing into mountain sides, with the loss of many lives...."

2. Bananarama -- Cruel Summer



Because, frankly, you just can't have too much Bananarama, even with crappy synth drums.

And the most memorable summer song -- summer being defined as hot, sweaty and fly-infested -- obviously is....

1. Mick Farren -- Let's Loot the Supermarket Again (Like We Did Last Summer)




Typical first generation 70s Brit-punk snarl, although Farren himself had been through one or two too many youth cultures by the time he conned Stiff Records into releasing this. Not in itself a particularly fabulous record, but you gotta admit -- the title's brilliant.

Awrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?