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