Summertime Blues
by Blue Cheer
- 138
- BPM
- G minor
- Key
- 6A
- Camelot
- 46
- Danceability
- 69
- Acousticness
Eddie Cochran and his manager, Jerry Capehart, wrote "Summertime Blues." The lyrics follow a teenager squeezed by his parents, his boss and his congressman. He resents taking a job just for pocket money, and his boss keeps him working too late for a date. He fakes sick to skip work, and his parents then refuse him the car. He thinks about complaining to the United Nations, but writes to his congressman. The congressman brushes him off. The boy is too young to vote.
Cochran recorded it on March 28, 1958, at Gold Star Recording Studios in Hollywood. He sang the lead and the low "work-a-late" parts, played all the guitar parts and added hand claps. Connie "Guybo" Smith played bass and Earl Palmer drums. It was a B-side when it came out in August 1958. It peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The San Francisco band Blue Cheer, a psychedelic blues act, scored a hit with their cover. It is sometimes cited as the first heavy metal recording. The Who, Alan Jackson and Brian Setzer all had hits with it too.
Summertime Blues runs at 138 BPM, the tempo of techno, trance and big-room dance. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.74 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 435 ms. It is in G minor, Camelot 6A, which shares its notes with Bb major and mixes cleanly with C minor and D minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.