"Summertime"

Backdated, archival post

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I listened to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess yester-day, so I started thinking about "Summertime," particularly the first line:  "It's summertime, and the livin' is easy."  It occurred to me that in the Zombies' version, there's a vocal glissando during that "easy," so there's a sort of melodic ease to which that word is sung.  I just went through about a dozen versions of "Summertime" that I have, and with two exceptions, none of them have that glissando.  (And neither of those two glissandi are very similar to the Zombies'.)  So while it's not unique to their version, it seem like it might be original.

Also, I got to thinking about the story that Argent's frequently told about how the line "Your daddy's rich, and your mama's good-lookin'" inspired the "Who's your daddy / Is he rich?" in "Time of the Season."  I think I found a few other lyrical nods to "Summertime" in "Time of the Season."  Both have a temporal element in their title and lyrics ("Summertime" and "Time of the Season," although Argent's also told the story about how he got the phrase "Time of the Season" from mishearing the lyrics in a Miracles' song), and both describe something as "high."  "Summertime" has "the cotton is high," and the "time of the season" in "Time of the Season" is "When love runs high."  There's a slightly different meaning there, but it's the same word in a similar description.

I would have thought those merely coincidental similarities were it not for Argent's admission of that "Your daddy's rich"/"Who's your daddy / Is he rich?" reference.