“When will it really be summer again?” – Why Rudi Carrell’s hit was overtaken by reality

Cologne. One of the sunniest hits in German music history was written on a dark night. One evening in 1975, presenter Rudi Carrell sat down in the kitchen-living room of his farmhouse near Bremen. Across from him was lyricist and sketch writer Thomas Woitkewitsch. Under the table was a case of beer. And Carrell said: "Now think of something."

The next morning, the box was empty – but there was a hit that would last for decades: "When will it really be summer again?" Carrell sang of his longing for a summer "like it used to be." In the Dutchman's coordinate system, that meant hot and dry. Fifty years ago, on May 5, 1975, the song entered the German charts.

Today, five decades later, the song still sounds like a light summer breeze and carefree vacation days – yet a slightly different wind is blowing. The line "When will it really be summer again?" also has something painfully beautiful to the ears of 2025. Why is that?

Perhaps we should first look at its origins. "When will it really be summer again?" is a cover of the song "City of New Orleans," written by Steve Goodman, who actually had highly political intentions at the time. In the lyrics, he criticized a decision by the administration of US President Richard Nixon that allowed railroad companies to close unprofitable lines. This affected many poor people.

"Now come up with something": Thomas Woitkewitsch, lyricist and television editor, wrote the hit together with Carrell.

Source: Oliver Berg/dpa

But Carrell, who died in 2006, didn't want it to be political. Especially since he probably knew the catchy melody from another version from the Netherlands. His approach was different. "He said: Man, there are songs about food, there are songs about love. But there isn't a meteorological song yet," lyricist Thomas Woitkewitsch recalls in an interview with dpa. "And then he said: We'll do something with summer."

Carrell even carried this rather apolitical approach through to the recording. The verse became famous: "The winter was the flop of the century, only above a thousand meters was there snow. My milkman says: This climate here, who's surprised? Because the SPD is solely to blame." However, anyone who listens closely will notice Carrell breathing a kind of laughter-sigh into the microphone – as an audible distance from his own punchline. "He wasn't a cabaret artist," says Woitkewitsch. Carrell, however, came up with the line himself.

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The Dutchman, notorious for his keen nose, is said to have sensed that he might have succeeded with the song. "When he went into the studio, he said: Thomas, this could be something like Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas,'" Woitkewitsch recounts. In other words, an immortal classic.

Curiously, he was competing with a second German version, recorded by the affable Western pop singer Ronny. While Ronny ("Einmal vergeht der schönste Sommer") came across as rather sour-faced, Carrell seemed light-hearted. The matter was quickly decided.

The Dutchman's success was also due to his tapping into a current sentiment at the time. With his complaint in 1975, he struck a meteorological nerve.

"I looked at the data: 1974 was one of the coldest summers we've had in Germany," says climatologist and meteorologist Andreas Walter, who, because of his profession, is often asked about the evergreen (though also about "Raining Men" by the Weather Girls, he says). "In that respect, the song was probably justified at the time."

Looking at the text today, a different feeling can also emerge. Back then, lines like "it was up to 40 degrees in the shade, we had to be sparing with water" were to be understood as humorous exaggerations. Fifty years later, not necessarily.

"We're now a long way from the temperatures that prevailed in the summers of the 1960s," explains meteorologist Walter. Summers have become significantly warmer. "In recent years, we've also had a rainfall deficit, and the soils have been very dry in some places." This has led to an increased risk of forest fires and low water levels in rivers.

"The picture Carrell paints in his lyrics is certainly not the ideal summer we have today—in light of climate change," says the climatologist. "When the song came out in 1975, it was certainly due to the fact that there were indeed cooler periods in the mid-1970s. But generally, I would say: Carrell has been overtaken by reality."

So, should we mothball "When will it really be summer again?"? That would miss the essence of the song. Carrell may have been singing about the weather, but it was actually about the people for whom everything was always better back then anyway. And they remain relevant.

Lyricist Woitkewitsch himself has little problem with the longing for super heat. "For me, summer can never be hot enough," says the 81-year-old.

RND/dpa