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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIDOEsQL7lA
;">"Summertime" is the name of an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess.
The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward.
The song
soon became a popular jazz
standard.
Gershwin is said to have based this song on a Ukrainian lullaby,
Oi Khodyt
Son Kolo Vikon (A Dream
Passes By The Windows), which he heard in a New York City performance by
Oleksander
Koshetz’s Ukrainian
National Chorus.[citation
needed]
Gershwin began composing the song in December 1933, attempting to
create his
own spiritual in
the style of the African American folk music of the
period. It is sung
multiple times throughout Porgy and Bess, first by Clara in Act I
as a
lullaby and soon after as counterpoint to the crapsgame scene, in
Act II in a reprise by Clara, and in Act III by Bess, singing to Clara's
baby.
Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is
high
Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little
baby
Don't you cry
One of these mornings
You're going to rise up
singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the
sky
But till that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy
and mamma standing by
Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are
jumpin'
And the cotton is high
Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's
good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry
