1816, The Year Without a Summer

In the spring of thirteen-fifteen

There began an era of unpredictable weather

It did not lift until eighteen-fifty-one

You remember eighteen-sixteen as the year without a summer

June eighteen-sixteen

A sudden snowstorm blankets all the country side

So Mary Shelley had to stay inside

And she wrote Frankenstein

Oh eighteen-sixteen was the year without a summer

Grain couldn't ripen under these conditions, no

It was brought in-doors in urns and pots

It'd go from ninety-five degrees to freezing within hours

A brutal struggle for the people and the starving livestock

During the most sever years of this little ice age

We looked for scapegoats to blame

Many people tried to blame it all

On a vast Freemason conspiracy

Or Benjamin Franklin and his experiments with electricity

The eruption of the volcano Tambora

Blanketed the earth with ash

That was the real cause discovered by some explorer

Years later, looking back at the past

I will give you

My red color

To take away your sickly pallor

For you were very choleric of complexion

Please beware the mounting sun

And all dejection

Eighteen-sixteen was the year without a summer