Down Memory Lane

OK, couldn't resist. Here are some of the songs I associate with the summer of '66. Some may have come out earlier, but they were still showing up on car radios and clock radios that summer.
I'm not sure we heard too much more from The Cyrkle, although "Turn-Down Day" is also one I remember. Maybe their hair was just too short. A lot of people have covered this song, but this is the one that was playing back then:


In those days, one actually heard songs from Broadway musicals on Top 40 radio. Here's the one we were hearing that summer, although I couldn't find the late Robert Goulet's version; we'll have to "make do" with Bryn Terfel.


That summer was my first experience as a regular city bus rider, certainly not my last. Alas, when it rained I didn't meet a nice young man, I had to make do with my host's Harvard golf umbrella (nice and big though!) Anyway, that's probably why this song stuck with me. The video is newer but the audio is the classic version.


And here's one that I remember more clearly from the last couple of months of high school, but which was probably still getting airtime come summer. Yes, this kind of music got played then too.


Anybody else from my misspent youth want to chime in with some other suggestions?

A Word Association Friday Five

Over at RevGalBlogPals, Singing Owl says:

I am feeling like playing hooky, and I'm putting off sermon prep till tomorrow. It is a beautiful, sunny day at my place. So come on outside and let's play a summer Friday Five!

This post is loosely based on previous "wordy" Friday Fives from Reverend Mother and Songbird. I liked the results, and so we are doing another word association . Theirs were based on words from a lectionary text. Mine comes from the Lovin' Spoonful song, "Summer in the City."

Think summer......are you there? Below you will find five words or phrases. Tell us the first thing you think of on reading each one. Your response might be simply another word, or it might be a sentence, a poem, a memory, a recipe, or a story. You get the idea:

1. rooftop
GARDEN
2. gritty
CITY
3. hot town (yeah, I know, it's two words)
IN THE OLD TOWN TONIGHT
4. night
MUSIC
5. dance
FEVER
And for your listening pleasure, here is the song.


Thanks, Singing Owl, for taking me back to the halcyon summer days of 1966. I was staying at my friend The Decorator's parents' house, working at a Federal agency in Bridgeport (hence, the gritty city), and evenings and weekends, reconnecting with my friends after my two-year absence in Germany and Maine. (Same friends I was just with in SC). Enjoying my first "real job" ($50 a week! wealth beyond the dreams of avarice!), the beach, going to plays and concerts at the late lamented Stratford Shakespeare Festival....Maybe in a bit I'll find some of the other songs from that summer.