At the risk of repeating myself – it’s still unbearably hot here, and this is forecast to last for the whole week, though we might her getting rain to go with the heat on Thursday. A small relief! But I thought I’d ‘celebrate’ with another set of tunes, four of which have hot in their title and an outlier with summertime. Almost all have appeared in previous years, but as they are all good it feels right to play them again.

I like to begin with something rousing (i.e. loud) if I can, so how about this:

That was, of course, Foreigner with Hot Blooded, which was released both as a single and the opening track on their second album, Double Vision, in June 1978. The album made #3 in both the US and Canada, and #31 in the UK, and has sold more than 7m copies in the US, earning 7x Platinum status. The single also reached #3 in the US, and a rather lowly #42 in the UK. Considering that the band comprised three members each from the US and the UK we took our time getting into them! This song was co-written by Lou Gramm, the lead singer, and Mick Jones, lead guitarist – that’s one from each side of the pond. Wikipedia quotes Lou as saying

“We used to work at Mick’s apartment and he would just keep playing one guitar riff after another. Just playing whatever came into his mind. When he started playing that riff, I remember saying, “Wait! Stop! What’s that?” Mick said it was just another riff. So, I started singing along to it. We eventually got the idea of what the chorus would be and then started working on the verse lyrics. Once they were put together it naturally led to the Hot Blooded verbal line. I remember we were jumping off the walls when we cracked the title of the song.”

So that’s how a hit record comes about, though other songwriting methods are available.

Today’s first three songs were all in the same post last year – pure coincidence, you don’t think I plan these, do you? Here’s the second:

John Mellencamp released Hot Dogs And Hamburgers on his ninth album, The Lonesome Jubilee, in August 1987. The album made #1 in Canada, #2 in Australia, #3 in New Zealand, #6 in the US, and #31 in the UK: I was among the select group of Brits who bought it! Four singles were taken from it, two of which made the US top ten and another reached the top twenty, but this track wasn’t one of them. The album sold well, and has earned 3x Platinum status in the US for 3m sales, and 6x Platinum in Canada for 600k. Like everything he has done I loved the album, and never understood why he wasn’t the success here that he was elsewhere. No accounting for taste, is there!

And the third one is a cover version, by the guy who recorded the song in the first place:

John Fogerty first released Hot Rod Heart in May 1997 on his fifth solo album, Blue Moon Swamp. It was a huge success in Scandinavia, reaching #1 in Finland and Sweden, and #3 in Norway, but fared less well in bigger markets. It peaked at #37 in the US – still good enough for a Gold Disc for 500k sales, but only got to #182 here in the UK. The version I am playing dates back to the pandemic days of 2020 when John ran a series of videos revisiting his back catalogue with his children, Shane, Tyler and Kelsy. These were compiled into an album under the name he used for the videos – Fogerty’s Factory – and released in November 2020, getting to #63 in the US. To be honest, the beauty of these was really in the videos, though, as you’ll have seen from this one. They were fun, and eagerly awaited each week by many like me, who needed some musical distractions from the horror of those times.

Slowing the pace down a little for this next one. I would have sworn that I had played this before but it doesn’t show up when I search, so here it is for the first time:

Billy Idol released Hot In The City as the lead single from his debut album, Billy Idol, in July 1982. As a single it reached #23 in the US and #58 in the UK, though a remixed version did get to #13 here in 1987. The album peaked at #45 in the US, going Gold for 500,000 sales, but didn’t make the UK chart. It made #6 in Canada, though, and went Platinum there for 100,000 copies sold. We were a bit slow on the uptake with him, and his peak period here was around the mid-80s, when several of his earlier songs were re-released, like this one, and became hits with higher chart placings. I always liked his swaggering, sneering style, and got the feeling that he was having a lot of fun playing the role.

I’m closing today with a song I couldn’t really leave out. In case I don’t revisit this theme (i.e. if the weather breaks!) I thought I’d squeeze it in today. You *may* have heard this one before:

What can I say about this one? The basic facts are that Mungo Jerry’s In The Summertime topped the UK charts for seven weeks in summer 1970, for six of which it kept Free’s All Right Now at #2. I loved that Free record – still do – and feel that it deserved at least a week at #1, but when you’re contending with a juggernaut like this one I guess you just have to take your place in the queue! This song captured the summer spirit around the world: it was #1 in eighteen countries, reached #3 in the US – the band’s only hit there – and has sold more than 30m copies. Not bad for a bit of jugband music that it is claimed took ten minutes to write. And for anyone who doesn’t know, the band’s name was inspired by the poem Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, from T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The lead singer and band leader, who wrote this song, is actually called Ray Dorset. They had a total of nine hit singles here, of which three others reached the top ten, including the follow up, Baby Jump, which also got to #1.

Just so that you know, I will be sharing this post in the usual places, so you can see it there alongside plenty of others. These are, of course, Esme’s Senior Salon Pit Stop and Cathy’s Monday’s (On Sundays) Music Moves Me

That’s all for now. I’ll see you again in a few days, by which time I’ll know if we are in the World Cup Final – concentration may be difficult if we are! I hope you get through the extreme weather we have been having, but just console yourself that an ‘expert’ tells us that it is all a ‘Dumocrat hoax,’ so you should derive comfort from that! Take care, and stay hydrated 👍