Sly and the Family Stone – Hot Fun in the Summertime

Some of us need his right now with the cold we are experiencing. Some way more than others. I live near Nashville, so we are in the 20s and 30s, but nothing compared to the northern states. I think of a few of my readers who live in Wisconsin and Michigan…I can’t imagine. 

A gentle, sun-soaked groove that felt like the last afternoon before school started again. It’s a song that takes summer with it whenever you listen. Most of his radio hits were positive, like this one and Everyday People. He was huge during his heyday, but has been neglected since. He had such a span of success between 1967 – 1973. 9 singles in that span in the top 40 including 3 number ones. He also wrote most of their hits, including this one. A terrific songwriter. 

This song came out in 1969, sandwiched between the more serious Everyday People and Stand!. The song primed their audience for their successful upcoming appearance at Woodstock. Some thought their set was one of the best of the festival. I was only two in 1969, but I would imagine this song was drifting out of car radios, backyard barbecues, and AM stations every summer like clockwork. You didn’t analyze it, you lived in it.

The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard 100 and #4 in Canada in 1969. In January of 2026, let’s listen to the song and think warm thoughts, and catch that warm vibe. 

Sylvester Stewart passed away in June of 2025.

Hot Fun In The Summertime

End of the springAnd here she comes backHi, hi, hi, hi thereThem summer daysThose summer days

That’s when I hadMost of my fun, backHi, hi, hi, hi thereThem summer daysThose summer days

I cloud nine when I want toOut of school, yeahCounty fair in the country sunAnd everything is trueOoh, yeah, yeah

Hot fun in the summertimeHot fun in the summertimeHot fun in the summertimeHot fun in the summertime

First of the fallAnd then she goes backBye, bye, bye, bye thereThem summer daysThose summer days

Boop-boop-boop-boopWhen I want toOut of schoolCounty fair in the country sunAnd everything is coolOoh, yeah, yeah

Hot fun in the summertime (hey, hey, hey, ooh)Hot fun in the summertime (ooh, yeah)Hot fun in the summertime

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

34 thoughts on “Sly and the Family Stone – Hot Fun in the Summertime”

  1. One of my favorites from that era. If you haven’t already seen it, there is an amazing documentary on the band and in particular Stewart called “Sly Lives.” It came out in January 2025, and was directed by Questlove. It’s very well done.

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  2. Pingback: Sly and the Family Stone – Hot Fun in the Summertime – MobsterTiger

  3. Nothing like a little Hot Fun on a 10º morning. I’m not sure we appreciated this band for what they meant at the time. Family-based, mixed in both race and gender, women as musicians and not just backing vocalists, multiple voices trading lead lines, a white man on drums. How many stereotypes did they break down and expose?

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    1. I knew it was cold there but wow.
      You are right…this band totally has been forgotten and I don’t understand why. He had some severe problems after this band but still. You are right…they broke a lot of sterotypes…

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  4. That’s a timely pick, Max! 🙂

    And, wow, temperatures in the ’20s in Nashville? Is that common, even during this time of the year?

    In my neck of the woods (central New Jersey), it’s currently 25, feeling like 17, which is chilly but not unusual. We got a bit of snow overnight, so I guess I’m gonna have some fun getting a bit of a workout with shoveling.

    “Hot Fun in the Summertime” might be a good song to queue! 🙂

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    1. Yes it’s common in this time of year. We get down to the teens and occasionally in the single digits but that doesn’t happen every night…but a few. Right now it’s in the 40s and it feels much better.
      Yes this song is always good as is most of Sly’s music.

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      1. The thing about climate change is that it used to be much colder. There are people here who grew up playing pond hockey all winter and now the waters hardly ever freeze over.

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    2. Ugh, snow; Wind whistling in through every crack, icicles forming above the porch, cold icy sidewalks growing taller with every snowfall? Sorry Keith, you can shovel that.

      I’m glad here we’re in Summer. (Though lately it feels like mid-Spring at best.)

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  11. Great tune! Really love Sly and the Family Stone. They were all superb musicians. (The bassist, Larry Graham, invented the slapping technique.) But Sly was a one and a million talent. So many of the late 60s early 70s rockers were in awe of him. He had a terrible drug habit, though. Derailed his career.

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    1. I’ve seen somewhere where Sammy Hagar met him in a studio in the late seventies or early eighties and he was totally out of it. It’s really sad because he was very important as was his band…I didn’t know that about Graham!

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  12. They were the greatest. Sly was another one who just oozed music out of every pore. Love the live one with the kid in the audience singing along. OK, now I’m going to go off on a tangent. There’s a collection of music called Country Got Soul- Vol 1&2 (It’s on YouTube). It has a lot of well-known artists on it, but one guy on it that I’d never heard of is Jim Ford. I looked him up and in his Wikipedia entry it quotes Sly Stone as calling him “the baddest white man on the planet”. He wrote songs that were covered by some soul acts. The whole collection is really good. It was compiled by a musician I admire named Jeb Loy Nichols (another artist for another day). Just wondered if you had ever heard of him.

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    1. I like Tangent! I’m looking up Jim Ford right now…yes! He did write a lot of songs. I’ll have to give a listen to that. So many people from Johnny Thunder – Link Wray – and Mac Davis covered him…I like him singing his own songs as well.
      Thanks for that…I’ll check him out.

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  13. Max, you are chilly. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but we lived in Memphis for a year back in 96-97. And of course, even though we were there for only a short time, it had to snow a couple of inches once. Man, that city was completely shut down. For a couple from PA, we got a good chuckle out of how the folks dealt with winter. We’ve been below freezing the last couple of days, a dusting of snow…it’s nice during the Holidays. Great tune. It was literally heard everywhere I went for several summers after its release…and to be a sure a super-talented band leader and group.

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    1. In Nashville (and around) we get way more snow than Memphis but yes…an inch of snow will shutdown Nashville and the counties around it. They don’t have the equipment at all! Whew…Memphis? I don’t go there much because some of it is really rough…especially around Graceland.

      Yea I think we need a little summer time feel now. I’ve always liked this song and about every song I’ve heard from them.

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