It's always Summertime with Mungo!
During the early 70’s, television viewers would have seen Mungo Jerry as a regular on Top of the Pops. In the first four years of the decade Mungo Jerry had eight hit singles, but the one single most associated with them was In The Summertime. It was a global hit and went to number one in 26 countries, selling 6 million copies. To date it has now sold over 30 million and been covered by such greats as Bob Dylan and Elton John. It is officially the most played summer song of all time and has won Ray Dorset a Sony, MTV and Ivor Novello award.
But quite apart from all that Ray is a good friend and one of the nicest blokes you could ever meet. That’s why he had no choice but to answer some of my lame questions.
If you could be any other musician past or present, which one would it be and why?
I don’t want to be any other musician except for myself, past or present. I’m just me and that’s it.
Note: We are too Ray!
If you had to name one song from any genre that really speaks to you, which one would it be and why?
I like songs from all kinds of genres. I like all kinds of stuff so I’m not going to say that one song is better than the other and any song particularly speaks to me. But obviously, from my career, and I’ve written what is the supposedly most known summer song in the whole world. Lyrically line by line you can pull out lots and lots of underlying sentiments within the phrases of the texts.
So I guess I would choose In The Summertime, so I don’t think I need to pull at any other one, any other people’s songs out there at all.
Are you a Mulder or Scully? Do you believe aliens have visited planet earth and if so what do you think they think about mankind?
I’m sure aliens have visited planet earth, because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen aliens.
I came back from a gig, must have been in the mid seventies, I was in Surrey, and in the early hours of the morning, I saw a cold kind of army of what looked like aliens crossing the road.
They were walking like two at a time behind each other. They had little kind of antennas on their head and their eyes were quite big and oval shaped and I thought I was actually seeing things. I didn’t believe it, but I thought maybe it was a group of deer, because there’s a lot of deer out that way.
The person that was with me saw them as well. So yes I do believe we have aliens probably among us and certainly I am convinced right up until this day that I have seen aliens on planet Earth, in Frencham in Surrey.
What do they think about mankind, well I haven’t got a clue. But if I was an alien and came to planet earth, round about this time, I’d say “what a strange place, why have we got so many earthlings, that have got a beautiful planet and they have decided to mess the whole place up, by overloading it with rubbish, plastic?” We’ve got climate change and global warming.
Nobody seems to pay attention to looking after the planet. Everyone seems to be more interested in what they can get out of it, make as much money as they possibly can to the detriment of their brothers and sisters.
For many years I’ve believed that the whole misuse of technology is messing up the whole world, and it has done for generations and generations.
You’ve got this problem with jealousy and pride and greed and honour and ego, and if we can get rid of all that and get rid of the ego you’ll probably get people to be more easygoing and less uptight about everything.
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