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