Hot Fun in the Summertime -- Sly & the Family Stone

End of the spring and here she comes back   Hi Hi Hi there
Them summer days, those summer days  That's when I had most of my fun, back
high high high high there  Them summer days, those summer days

Rose:         I "cloud nine" when I want to
Freddie:    Out of school, yeah
Larry:         County fair in the country sun
Sly:            And everything, it's true, ooh yeah

All:            Hot fun in the summertime  
All:            First of the fall and then she goes back   Bye bye bye bye there
                Them summer days, those summer days

Rose:     "Boop-boop-boop" when I want to
Freddie   Out of school, yeah
Larry:       County fair in the country sun
Sly:           And everything, it's true, ooh yeah

All:             Hot fun in the summertime 

On the surface, this is a song dedicated to summer and all the fun memories accompanying it. However, if studied further, the song reveals an undercurrent of sadness regarding the race riots of 1969.                                                                                    (songfacts)

              

On July 17, 1969, with racial tensions at the boiling point, a black youth who burned himself playing with lighter fluid blamed a local white gang known as the Girarders. That would later be revealed as a lie, but not before the pent-up resentments of the black community turned violent. That same day, seventeen-year-old Taka Nii Sweeney was shot by an unseen gunman when York City Police Detective stopped him and his friends for violating the city's youth curfew. White and black gangs began fighting that afternoon. Eleven others were hurt when people in six blocks of the city reverted to rock-throwing, barricading and shooting from behind bushes and poles.

Fighting lasted through the night and into the next day. Nine more people were injured, including Officer Henry C. Schaad. Schaad, a twenty-two-year-old rookie with eleven months on the force was struck by a bullet believed to have been fired by a black rioter while riding in one of the police department's two armored trucks. White gangs around the city prepared for revenge. Schaad languished in the hospital for nearly two weeks before succumbing to his injuries.

As Schaad lay dying, racial tension soared in the city. Fights broke out, buildings were set ablaze and police began barricading black neighborhoods. More than sixty people were injured, one hundred were arrested, and entire city blocks were burned.           (wikipedia)