Well around these parts Summer officially starts at 4:50 pm on Thursday, June 20, 2024. Whenever it begins for you, todays post celebrates some of the most popular summer songs from the 1950s and I will follow with one for the 60s. Billboard Magazine has a long history of naming “The Song of the Summer” going back to 1958, the first full summer for the Hot 100.

Today we list the officially named Billboard Song of the Summer with some reference to the Rolling Stone Magazine list of The 55 Best Summer Songs of all Time. To simplify (my life anyway) I will shortform that to 55BSS and all references to a “ranked” song are from this list.

Songs of the Summer

“Nel blu, dipinto di blu” (“Volaré”) was the 1958 Song of the Summer.

The first “song of the summer” listed on Billboard and from Wikipedia (which seems to just have copied the Billboard list) is “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” (roughly meaning in the blue painted sky) and better known as “Volaré”. This plucky song was co-written by the prolific Franco Migliacci along with the original singer/songwriter Domenico Modugno.

Just a bit of trivia about Migliacci, he wrote hundreds of songs, including “La terza luna” by Neil Sedaka. Yes, this song hit #1 in Italy in April of 1963, one of many songs Sedaka sang in Italian, he also did a Yiddish album and songs in French, German, Hebre,w and Japanese.

“Nel blu, dipinto di blu” is much more than a summer song, in fact if the song could speak it may say “I’m kind of a big deal”, not to take anything away from Anchorman Ron Burgundy. First introduced on January 30, 1958, after winning first prize at the San Remo Festival, it was immediately released as a 45 rpm single. After finishing third at Eurovision (recently named #2 of all time) it very quickly became an international sensation and was recorded in nine languages in just its first year.

In 1958, the same year it was released it was covered 18 times in Italian.  After entering the charts at #54 for the week of August 4th it spent five weeks at #1 on the newly formed Billboard Hot 100 in August and September. While it hit top tens worldwide, it was only #1 in the US. It would go on be the #1 Year End song on Billboard and at the very first Grammys in 1959 it won Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

The first version with English translation (words by Mitchell Parish) was by Dean Martin (my favorite, which hit #1 in the UK) with his dual language version. It was the first of eight such covers in 1958. The first Italian language release titled as “Volaré” was in 1959 by Connie Francis who was another artist well known for recording in multiple languages. To date, this song has been covered over 280 times, which is quite a number but still only 385th on the Most Covered Songs list from Secondhandsongs.com. Other popular versions are by Sergio Franchi (The 1976 Plymouth car commercial guy), and The Gipsy Kings.

Apparently, Ricardo Montalban did not record this song, which runs contrary to my own and others’ recollection. Although he did do a car commercial with the memorable phrase “fine Corinthian leather”.

Other songs from 1958

“Nel blu, dipinto di blu” is a great song no doubt, but I find it difficult to picture the younger crowd dancing or sitting around the jukebox during the summer of 1958 with “Volaré” playing instead of the popular pop and rock and roll songs of the day.  Having said that, just two years later, teenage heartthrob Bobby Rydell hit the top ten in 1960 with his version of “Volaré”. But back to 1958, The Everly Brothers were all over the charts at this time. “All I Have to do is Dream” is the only song in history to hit #1 on all the Billboard Charts simultaneously, occurring on June 2. It was #1 in Canada (May 5-June 2) and on June 19th it hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart.

Also very popular was Elvis Presley’s “Hard Headed Woman”, along with Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool”. Both were #1 for two weeks that summer. If we look at the Disc Jockey chart (one of several before the Hot 100 amalgamation August 4th) the novelty song “The Purple People Eater” was also #1 for four weeks.

The better pick for me that year would be Eddie Cochran with “Summertime Blues” which came out in June, hit #8 on Billboard, and was #18 in the UK. It was co-written by Cochran and his manager/songwriting partner Jerry Capehart. The 55BSS ranks this song at number three. Most famously covered by The Who (their version ranked at #19 on the same list). “Summertime Blues” is the only song to appear twice on the list. There is also a great rendition by Brian Setzer for the movie La Bamba (1987) and Alan Jackson had a #1 Country hit with it in 1994. Also if I may, an honorable mention for a memorable cover (in the style of the Who) from my brother Ivan’s band, my fuzzy recall places it circa 1980 at the old Oxford Tavern (the OxBox).

Let’s backtrack just a bit before moving on to my next post on the 60s, here are more unofficial Summer Songs from the 1950s.

In the years prior to the Billboard Hot 100, I would have to say “Rock Around the Clock” was among other things, the top summer song, spending 8 weeks at #1 during the summer of 1955.

In 1956 there were very few R&R songs that hit #1, except for Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” which topped the charts for 7 weeks from May 5 to June 16. He hit the top 10 with “I Want You, I Need You” (#3), “Hound Dog” (#2) and finished in September with “Don’t be Cruel” which spent 7 weeks at #1 up to the end of October of 1956.

In 1957, we had Elvis again with “All Shook Up” ending an 8-week run at #1 in June. Afterwards, Pat Boone occupied the top spot but Elvis returned with “(Let Me Be) Your Teddy Bear”, for 7 weeks at #1 until the end of August. Honestly, this man blows me away every time.

This brings us back to where Billboard started in 1958, but to finish the decade, 1959 had very few true R&R songs at the top of the charts. That summer it was two songs; there was Country artist Johnny Horton with “The Battle of New Orleans” and teenage idol Paul Anka with “Lonely Boy” (Billboard’s choice) that dominated the #1 spot.

Elvis had the only really rocking song “A Big Hunk o’ Love” for 2 weeks at #1 in August. Ray Charles “What’d I Say” spent the month of August in the top 20 extending into September for a total of 7 weeks peaking at #6. 55BSS ranked the instrumental “Sleepwalk” by Santo & Johnny at #19; it was a late summer song that hit #3 on August 31 before reaching #1 for the last two weeks of September.