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Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember with Shirley Griffith. This week on our program, we play some of our favorite songs about summer.

(MUSIC)

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One of the most famous songs about summer is from George Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess." He wrote the music in nineteen thirty-five. The opera takes place in the southern United States. It opens with these words: "Summertime and the livin' is easy. Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high." Leontyne Price sings the song.

(LEONTYNE PRICE - "SUMMERTIME")

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Here is Billy Stewart's version of the same song.

(BILLY STEWART - "SUMMERTIME")

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The nineteen fifties and sixties produced many songs about teenagers enjoying their summer vacation from school. The songs are about having fun, swimming in the ocean, driving in cars. This one is "Summertime, Summertime" by the Jamies.

(THE JAMIES - "SUMMERTIME, SUMMERTIME")

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(THE BEACH BOYS - "ALL SUMMER LONG")

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However, for some teenagers, summer vacation was not all fun and games. Some of them had to work to earn money. Eddie Cochran sang about this in "Summertime Blues." Many other bands and artists later recorded this song, including the British rock band, the Who.

(THE WHO - "SUMMERTIME BLUES")

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The Lovin' Spoonful was a band that did not love summers in the city because of the heat. They sang: "Hot town, summer in the city. Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty." And: "All around, people looking half-dead, walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head." They liked the nighttime better when they could dance and have more fun. "Summer in the City" was released in the summer of nineteen sixty-six and was one of the Lovin' Spoonful's greatest hits.

(LOVIN' SPOONFUL - "SUMMER IN THE CITY")

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Even though it was hot, Sly and the Family Stone still found ways to have fun in the summertime. This song is about the happiness that the season promises, including going to a "county fair in the country sun."

(SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE - "HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME")

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(DJ JAZZY JEFF AND THE FRESH PRINCE - "SUMMERTIME")

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We leave you with a song from the movie version of the musical "Grease." It is about two teenagers who meet during their summer vacation and fall in love. Back at school in the autumn, they tell their friends all about it. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John sing "Summer Nights."

(JOHN TRAVOLTA AND OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN - "SUMMER NIGHTS")

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