Single Awareness: Bananarama – “Cruel Summer” (1983)

Right about this time, most of us would be out on the beach, blasting a playlist of “summer songs.” It’s the type of music that’s made specifically for those relaxing and having fun. There’s no real structure and what do we do but soak up the sun and have a good time?

Well, I don’t encourage you to actually do that this year. As tempting as it sounds, you have to go with what The CDC suggests, which is to not gather in massive crowds. I can only speak for California, but the state has recently been locked back down due to rising cases of COVID-19, and it’s a bummer. The inactivity has been tough to deal with, especially as it looks like the Fall months won’t bring with them any celebratory experience. This thing is only going to continue. 

But we can’t spend the summer months indoors. We need to have those summer songs blasting from some radio. Well, short of living out your fantasies on Tik Tok, there is one thing that comes to mind. The song of the summer isn’t anything new. I’m sure there are dozens of great new songs to keep us pumped. But, if we’re being honest with ourselves we don’t need anything in line with the careless embrace of your Katy Perry’s “California Gurls.” What you need is something more critical, reflective of this moment so perfectly that it almost feels dirty to dance to the song.

That is where Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer” comes in.

Okay, some of the ironies may be a bit too obvious for choosing the song. After all, the band will be the first to admit that the song was written to reflect the darker side of summer. It’s the heat and exhaustion that the world conveys during this time. They would never have been able to predict a global pandemic that shut down summer, especially 37 years ago when America was starting The Reagan Era and (depending on who you were) everything was peachy keen.

But let’s be honest. If there are summer songs that transcend time and place, it’s “Cruel Summer.” Try as you might, the song is inescapable. There have been few pop songs to incorporate a xylophone melody so effectively that I guarantee it’s already stuck in your head. You don’t need the bumping bass underneath or the surf guitars washing over everything to appreciate what this song achieves. By the time that the harmonies kick in, you’re left with an infectious number that hides its darker subject under the upbeat production. It’s subversion at its finest.

What has always been strange about Bananarama for me is that I always saw them as the third best girl group band of the 1980s. There were The Bangles, The Go-Go’s, and then somewhere down the line was Bananarama. However, I’d argue that while each has its own collection of Top 40 mainstays, I can look at a list of Bananarama songs and recall their melodies more often than the other two. 

That may be because they held a place in The Guinness Book of World Records for being the all-female band with the most hits. There was a time when they were unstoppable. It may be why “Venus” feels like it’s recycled every five years for random feminine product commercials. They are that pop band that somehow have been humbled over time while never losing their credibility. If anything, their work just became that omnipresent on the radio that we began to take them for granted.

Still, their music ages so well, and “Cruel Summer” is their biggest stroke of genius. The xylophone alone is brilliant. The way that it abruptly cuts to a slower beat, mixing something childish with this looming threat in those slower notes. It fades into something resembling a dark cloud. It cuts off right as it gets to its most enjoyable note, requiring you to keep playing it, hoping to find out what happens next. There is this infectiousness that you usually don’t get with a xylophone. It can’t be played on any other instrument and have the same impact. There’s something didactic about it, and somehow it works perfectly.

You almost don’t need to hear the rest of the song to appreciate it. There are some aspects that may be terribly 80s, but when blended together it becomes its own neon-glow creation that was purposely designed to be inescapable. The opening of this song sounds like a cruel summer, of an optimist approaching this period of youthful spirits and feeling disappointed by what they find there, but finding the desire to move forward on a quest for a good time.

The opening verse is a vivid picture that you can’t help but relate to, especially if you live in a city landscape like New York or Los Angeles:

Hot summer streets and the pavements are burning, I sit around

Trying to smile, but the air is so heavy and dry

Strange voices are saying (What did they say?)

Things I can't understand

It's too close for comfort, this heat has got right out of hand

To be honest, this is something that’s easily relatable even if you don’t live in a city. There have been many days in the past month where I can be sitting inactively inside and find myself growing sweaty, exhausted by the temperature outside. You can’t escape it, and there is something terrible about it because our urge is to have fun and be active. To feel drained for being alive is a terrible experience, and it’s something that Bananarama have perfectly tapped into here, finding jubilance as they search for a way to escape the heat, breaking free of the cruel summer and getting to the heart of what matters. 

If you live in the city, it’s difficult. As the song suggests, you’re crowded with sweaty bodies and have no privacy. There’s no way to have fun when there are millions of noises distracting you. You’re alone. A brilliant subtext of the song is that the chorus ends with “Now you’re gone,” finding an even more ambiguous longing overwhelming the group. The guitar begins to play like the wind, hiding secrets from us as we look into it, trying not to be blinded by the heat.

To a large extent, the music video is nothing special. It’s your typical visualization of a hit song. The whole point is to watch the trio climb up to the roof of a city apartment complex to party. There’s a play on The Dukes of Hazzard where they’re also trying to outrun some goofball cops, throwing banana peels at them as they drive away. There are other small things that happen, though you’ll be forgiven for not thinking anything of note really happened. 

According to member Siobhan Fahey, there is one interesting story for those who have a keen eye. It is said that the band was out of it when they began filming. However, they looked manic and full of energy later in the day for one reason. Fahey says that during a break, they befriended dockworkers who shared with them a vial of cocaine. Having never tried the drug, they decided to share it, and the rest was history. What we’re watching is one specific way to beat the cruel summer: to absolutely lose your mind.

As far as I know, that’s a minor note in the “Cruel Summer” legacy, which is surprisingly more fruitful than one would expect. It didn’t stop at being the band’s most successful single in their career. Much like The Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love,” there is a whole legacy behind the song that has grown over the decades. For instance, it didn’t become a hit until almost a year later when the song appeared in The Karate Kid (1984). Despite not appearing on the soundtrack, it became a hit later on. 

Similarly, the band has revised it at several points throughout their career. There’s “Cruel Summer ’89,” which was done with new singer Jacquie O’Sullivan and given a new jack swing structure. To be honest, the xylophone is what makes the song, so it doesn’t quite land the same, but it proved otherwise how durable the song was. You could put that melody over everything and it’s likely that the cruel summer would translate. We’re all suffering together, and there’s a need to dance together, having fun in this blistering heat.

There are allegedly four versions. Along with the original and new jack swing cover, there’s supposedly one with a Latin rhythm that is difficult to track down. It’s unclear what the other version is.

Bananarama helped to make “Cruel Summer” a popular phrase as well, eventually being adapted to different original songs. Kanye West had an album called “Good Music Cruel Summer.” Similarly, Taylor Swift’s most recent album “Lover” featured a song with the same name. Neither of them shares DNA with the 1983 original, but it’s clear that the phrase has become truer over time. Maybe it’s just because global warming has raised the temperature, where heatwaves feel more insufferable than ever before. Then again, Swift doesn’t focus on the heat, instead going to a more emotional side of cruelty during the summer. There’s even a memorable cover by Ace of Base that is worth tracking down.

As the summer months trudge along, it’s going to be difficult to call this a good summer. This isn’t just because of the heat. What Bananarama doesn’t realize is how much their song has come to envision different capacities for what a cruel summer can be. It may be about being sticky with sweat, but right now it feels more like a phrase we’d used to call things unfair. We can’t go out into crowds for fear of spreading viruses. People are dying and the administration clearly doesn’t care about you unless you’re a number, a percent that has no feelings but plenty of incentives.

I am willing to hear any case for what the summer song of 2020 is, but it’s going to have to find a way to find optimism in a dark time. Few pop hits have achieved that with such clarity as Bananarama, managing to get us moving even during a heatwave. That’s what’s important right now, which is to keep moving and to keep spirits high. While this will be an unconventional summer, hopefully it’s one that finds new ways to have fun, making the world connect in exciting new ways. As the song suggests, we may be alone but we need to keep moving forward anyway. This cruel summer (and year) can’t last forever.