There’s no sunshine, surfing or girls in The Beach Boys’ cover of an old Lead Belly tune that gave them perhaps their least typical hit in the summer of 1970.

I may have got the wrong idea about The Beach Boys when I first heard them 40 years ago. I may even have thought they were people of colour when this raced up to No.5 in the charts in the summer of 1970.

Ain’t no sunshine or surfing, ain’t no cars or girls in this countrified cover of a Lead Belly tune that the old blues legend (who I’d never heard of in 1970) had recorded in 1941.

Today I imagine there would be people complaining about cultural appropriation with a bunch of affluent white Californians singing  “When I was an itty-bitty baby / My mama done rock me in the cradle / In dem ol’ cotton fields back home”. Mmm-hmmm, yessir. Yes indeed.

At least they didn’t perform it in blackface on Top of the Pops.

Anyway, it may not sound a whole lot like Mr Ledbetter’s version, nor the covers by Odetta and Harry Belfonte, but it’s been covered by plenty of white folks down the years, including Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, The Highwaymen, Elvis Presley, Elton John and The Pogues.

None as pleasing to my ear as this one, though.