The Mountain Goats have recorded a cover of War’s “Summer” for their contribution to Amazon Music’s new Songs Of Summer playlist, which also contains new material from Vampire Weekend’s Chris Baio, Surfer Blood, Laura Gibson, Blitzen Trapper, Passenger, and more. John Darnielle explained his band’s cover selection in a press release:

I grew up in southern California in the mid-to-late 1970s. War’s music was an AM radio standby — Low Rider, Summer, Why Can’t We Be Friends, Cisco Kid — these were songs you heard coming out of car windows, playing from radios inside the snack bar near the Little League dugout, and from portable radios at parks. To me so much of War’s music is the sound of summer and this song goes directly to the point and stays there, deep in the vein of the groove that War mined and made their own.

Listen via Pitchfork below.

And here’s a Baio original, “Don’t Fight Fate”: