The Lovin’ Spoonful scored the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with “Summer in the City” on August 13, 1966. The track was originally released as part of their third studio effort “Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful” and hit radio on July 4, 1966. The initial inspiration came from a poem written by Mark Sebastian, younger brother of Lovin’ Spoonful founder John Sebastian. Mark had penned the lyrics to the songs as a poem for a literary magazine while attending boarding school and passed the lyrics along to John. Feeling that the lighthearted lyrics needed a darker musical arrangement, John turned to the band’s bassist Steve Boone, who offered up the signature piano line. “We hired an old sound man . . . from the radio era, and he had old acetates of traffic jams and car horns. We found a pneumatic hammer . . . to provide the payoff,” John Sebastian told Billboard in 2005.