In the Spring of 1315 there began an era of unpredictable weather,
It did not lift until 1851. You remember 1816 as the year without a summer.
June 1816, a sudden snowstorm blankets all the countryside,
So Mary Shelley had to stay inside and she wrote Frankenstein,
Oh, 1816 was the year without a summer.

Grain couldn't ripen under these conditions,
It was brought indoors 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 severe years of this little ice age
We looked for scapegoats to blame.
Many people tried to blame it all on a vast free-Mason conspiracy,
Or Benjamin Franklin and his experiments with electricity.

The eruption of the volcano Tambora
Blanketed the earth with ash.
That was a real cause discovered by some explorer
Years later, looking back at the past.

I will give you my red colour
To take away your sickly pallor.
For you are so very choleric of complexion,
Please beware the mounting sun and all dejection.

1816 was the year without a summer.

PRINT LYRICS

VIEW FRENCH TRANSLATION