Songs of the Summer, 2021

Lagos Calling, My Students Say

The most covered song of all-time isn't a mere summer tune. If you go by the English National Opera website, it's an aria: "Summertime," from the opera Porgy and Bess, with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Many, including Stephen Sondheim, believe that the writer DuBose Heyward, who wrote the 1925 novel Porgy on which the Gershwins based their opera, should have been credited as a lyricist as well. (Heyward was white and wrote about black Charleston life; he came from an aristocatic Charleston, S.C., family.)

In any case, 25,000 versions of "Summertime" can't be wrong, though Billie Holiday is credited as being the first cover, Ella Fitzgerald the swingingest, Big Brother & the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin the rockingest, Billy Stewart the most eccentrically soulful, and Lana del Ray the most recent: This aria has plenty of air. Del Rey's 2019 version, by the way, called "Doin' Time," is a mashup that includes Gershwin song, originally done by the 1990s rock …