Looking at a list of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s string of hits in the mid-1960s, I find I only know one of them… this summertime classic.

Unusually, it doesn’t celebrate summer in the city – “People looking half dead, walking on the sidewalk hotter than a match head” – but pines for the cooler nights when you can “Go out and find a girl, dance all night.”

I’m surprised to learn they came to fame as a folk-rock group like The Byrds and The Mamas & The Papas as I don’t hear any of that in this hard-driving tune, filled with samples of “city” sounds like car horns and pneumatic drills.

But it’s a classic; there’s no doubt about that.

The band’s leader was former folkie John Sebastian, who teamed up in 1965 with Yal Zinovsky, Steve Boone and Joe Butler.

Interestingly, their career suffered a minor slump when Sebastian and Zinovsky were busted for marijuana possession in 1967: not because they were jailed but because they weren’t.

The duo avoided prosecution by grassing up their source – resulting in a hippie boycott, and a minor loss of sales for bringing bad vibes to the counterculture.