The only song of the Beat era in which a VW Beetle horn and a jackhammer are used is probably the song by the Lovin' Spoonful , which entered the BRAVO Musicbox on September 12, 1966, stayed there for eleven weeks and reached number four.
On the same evening that the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, the future Lovin' Spoonful founders John Sebastian and Zalman Yanowski met for the first time. In the house of Cass Elliott , who later became famous with the Mamas & Papas , they watched the show together and then made music themselves for a few hours. Cass Elliott then went to each of them in turn and told them that one of them wanted to make music with the other. John and Zal were accepted into the Mugwumps , of which Cass and Denny Doherty , also later a Mamas & Papas musician, were already members.
Because John unwaveringly incorporated blues licks into the Mugwumps' songs, he was soon fired by his manager for being counterproductive. When the Mugwumps followed the path of many bands to musical nirvana six months later, John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky got back together and founded the Lovin' Spoonful with Steve Boone and Joe Butler . The idea for the band name came from a song by Mississippi John Hurt . One line of his song » Coffee Blues « says: » I wanna see my baby 'bout a lovin' spoonful, my lovin' spoonful « .
When »Summer In The City« reached number one in the US Billboard charts on August 13, 1966, it was already the Lovin' Spoonful 's fifth hit. The two direct predecessors »Daydream« and »Do You Believe in Magic« had both reached number two.
Zal Yanowsky explained the success of the songs as follows ( BRAVO 25 from 1966 ): "Simplicity, that's the whole secret. They all work with electronic effects. Whether it's the Supremes, the Righteous Brothers or the Rolling Stones, they have a lot of machine music behind them. Over time, it must sound monotonous. And then we came along and sang and played very plainly and simply - that made people sit up and take notice."
However, they deviate from this simplicity in "Summer In The City" . In contrast to its predecessors, the song sounds almost rocky, with powerful drums and staccato-like keyboards. John Sebastian's brother Mark came up with the idea for the song. He had written a poem about the hot New York summer nights, which are only bearable if you find a girl to go dancing with at night. John tweaked the lyrics a little and bassist Steve Boone had a piano melody ready that didn't seem to fit anywhere else. Here it was perfect and the song was finished. John Sebastian later compared the song to George Gershwin's "An American in Paris".
Even though the Lovin' Spoonful no longer appear in the BRAVO Musicbox , they still have five more chart entries in the USA. However, they never again reach their greatest success.