As cliché as it must sound, this song literally came to me in a dream. I dreamt I was at an SCA event (in person, which is rare during the current pandemic days) and Her Excellency Countess Mathilde Adycote of Mynheniot was there. For some reason I was introducing her to a song I’d just written: the ancient English folk song Sumer Is Icumen In rewritten to fit the jazz hit Summertime (from Porgy and Bess).

I woke up with both tunes in my head simultaneously, and I spent a day trying to figure out how to fit them together. Here’s the result.

June 2020

Summertime is icumen in easy
Cuccu’s singin’, cuccu’s singin’ so lhude
Oh, so groweth seed and so bloweth that meadow
The wood, little baby, springeth nu.

One of these mornings, the ewe will rise up bleating
And the cow will low, lhoueth after calf, cu
Bullock sterteth, just don’t ask what those bucks do…
With daddy and mammy, sing cuccu.