“Summertime” is an aria written by Gershwin for his folk opera Porgy and Bess. The song incorporates jazz elements and classical styles from opera. From the very beginning of the song, Gershwin communicates to listeners that there is a clear tension between the subject matter (summer time) and the execution of the song. In other words, he shows us in a few ways that what is actually being sung in “Summertime” is not reflective of reality.

Usually when you think of summer time (especially summer time in the south) you immediately think of the word “hot”. Therefore, I was initially expecting something with an immediate upbeat rhythm and cheerful melody that created feelings of happiness and excitement that are typically associated with the season. Yet, when you listen to “Summertime” it surprisingly sounds very “cool”. The song sounds very soothing and peaceful, as opposed to excited and fast paced. This “coolness” of affect is clearly intentional because the song is a lullaby that a mother is singing to her child. Gershwin creates this calm and peaceful affect through soothing vocals sung in minor (0:24), the slow-moving harmony which suggest elements of blues (0:34), and by the lyrics themselves (Summer Time/ And the livin’ is easy).

However, the execution of the song “summertime” is purposefully ironic, because the woman is singing about the peacefulness of summertime, but in the opera the residents of “Catfish Row” live a life that is anything but peaceful. She also mentions that her husband is rich, but in reality he is not and they actually live on the margins. Therefore, Gershwin reveals to us the “falseness” of what is being sung by communicating contradictions present in the opera itself, but also  by deliberately going against our expectations of what summer time should sound like. This is perhaps reinforced by the decision to make the song a lullaby. Lullabies are what parents sing to their children to create a peaceful environment and make them go to sleep, the truth is not supposed to be told in a lullaby. Yet the lullaby serves two purposes in Gershwin’s work: (1) it agrees with what is being said in the lyrics by depicting a peaceful melody, but (2) it also challenges the peace and happiness that is being communicated in the lyrics by creating a very sad affect that is at odd with happiness. In this way, Gershwin presents listeners with a challenge: the lullaby seems to agree with the reality depicted in the lyrics, but also functions to challenge it.

We do not get an upbeat melody that is perhaps more in line with what summer time sounds like until the very end of the song (3:16 – 3: 28). This instrumental segment functions as recitative and symbolizes the transition “back to reality” after the mother has finished singing to her child. One can imagine the characters scurrying around the stage, after the mother has just finished singing. Perhaps, this is another way that Gershwin is communicating the tension between what we expect to hear and what we actually hear. What’s also very interesting about Summer time is how differently the song sounds when it is sung in different vocal styles. In the version we listened to, Harolyn Blackwell intentionally sings in a low, soothing operatic voice. However, in other versions (such as the one by Ella Fitzgerald) we get a more jazzy style of singing that sounds much different from the “cool” lullaby sung by Blackwell.