The 10 Greatest Summer Songs

1. Cheerleader (Felix Jaehn Remix) - Omi

When Headliners ended I was so relieved to be out of that gruelling and toxic situation that I celebrated by going to a restaurant. Which I never, ever do. Except on that occasion of course. A ridiculous (yet brilliant) song came on the radio, and after some targeted lyrical Googling I was able to ascertain it was called ‘Cheerleader’, by a gentleman named Omi. Remixed by a German DJ for maximum efficiency. If ever there was a feel-good summer banger, it is this. Though like everything else, it is best listened to at home alone. Perhaps whilst cleaning.

2. Cool - Gwen Stefani

The perfectly named track for the insane 30 degree London summers we get now (due to natural variance in climate). You can chill out with Gwen (if only). There aren’t many good songs about your marriage falling apart but then managing to get on with your ex’s new partner, but this is one. Still, imagine losing Gwen—Gavin Rossdale really messed up. Though actually the song was released ten years before their divorce. Anyway it’s a nice track for summer, for some reason, and the intro sounds like ‘Love Changes (Everything)’ by Climie Fisher, which I also recommend.

3. Girls In Their Summer Clothes - Bruce Springsteen

Fairly self-explanatory. Released in 2008, this is obviously well past the Boss’s peak era, but is still very strong. The vocals are more produced than usual, though as ever he sings in a rather high register for someone associated with being manly. Some may struggle to listen, knowing his horrendous leftie political views, which were always there but reached new levels of insanity when he sadly contracted Trump Derangement Syndrome. This was an extraordinary betrayal, given that the kinds of people he writes about are Trump’s absolute core voter base. He admitted that all his ‘working men’ type songs were based not on his own life, but his father’s. He had a pretty complicated relationship with his dad, which I now wildly speculate might be why he has such an issue with Trump.

4. Your Summer Dream - The Beach Boys

One could pick at least 8 million Beach Boys tracks for summer, and I could have easily gone with ‘Keep An Eye On Summer’ instead, which technically is a better song. But I am going with an early and relatively little known song, which perfectly captures that early part of a relationship when you’re young and it’s summer. I already went on about the track in my recent tribute to Brian Wilson, so check that out for more.

5. That Summer Feeling - Jonathan Richman

The Beach Boys are the kings of summer nostalgia, but with this track Jonathan Richman might be the prince. In classic Jonathan fashion he very literally explains the feeling of looking back fondly on a time that in reality wasn’t actually that good, but in hindsight seems perfect. And since we’re talking nostalgia, I saw Richman perform this song as part of his set at a gig in Islington about twenty years ago. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. It was so intimate they had to turn off the air conditioning so you could hear him properly, and he played a typically loose, improvised version of this song. ‘That summer feeling is gonna haunt you one day in your life’. Indeed.

6. Time - Pink Floyd

Why do I claim ‘Time’ is a summer song? Partly it’s just the feel. If you listen to this on a hot afternoon, it just feels right. There are also references to ‘lying in the sunshine’, and trying to ‘catch up with the sun’. True, there is also talk of rain and warming your bones beside the fire, but ‘kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown’ feels to me like a summer lyric. And again, we have that theme of the moment slipping away. Listening to it on Spotify, outside of the context of a concept album, the intro feels somewhat long and absurd. But when the song kicks in it’s always great. And ‘Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way’ remains a killer line, even if it is nicked from Thoreau. This was written in a simpler time, before Roger Waters came out as totally batshit. I might upset some by saying I don’t actually like Pink Floyd really, the Barrett or Gilmour era. But this track remains a certified banger.

7. Malibu - Miley Cyrus

Like ‘Cool’, this is another quite positive song, though both could be argued to contain a tinge of something less happy. For Stefani it’s the hint of regret in the lyrics, while for Cyrus it’s probably just the minor notes in the fairly chromatic chord progression. I would never have listened to Miley Cyrus in my life, but bizarrely I saw that Nick Fuentes had recommended it. The lefties have Bruce Springsteen and Roger Waters, but the far right has *checks notes*…Hannah Montana.

8. Graceland - Paul Simon

It wouldn’t be summer without something from Graceland, at least for me. We used to listen to this album on family holidays in Lanzarote. There wasn’t much media in those days, and I remember we listened to a radio version of A Christmas Carol, which was compelling, if somewhat frightening, and incongruous in the arid heat. Presumably that wasn’t summer, but anyway. ‘Graceland’ feels like it was constantly playing, in those golden years before dull care intervened. Paul Simon says it is the best song he ever wrote, and it’s easy to see why. I would say it’s perfect, but Simon has admitted there’s one line he would rewrite (the one about ‘ghosts and empties’, which he felt didn’t quite fit the meter). In this crazy heat, one could pick almost any track from the album, which, let’s remember, opens with the lyrics ‘It was a slow day, and the sun was beating on the soldiers by the side of the road’. But I’ve gone with ‘Graceland’ because it is so close to perfection. And since summer is so closely tied up with nostalgia, it is hard to beat the line ‘losing love is like a window in your heart’.

9. Drinking at the Dam - Smog

Probably the most obscure song on the list, but it’s another slice of summer nostalgia, with particularly interesting lyrics. Especially: ‘It was the first part of my life / second is the rest’. Those youthful summers that seem to last forever (as Bryan Adams once pointed out), but then it’s gone and the rest is just meh.

10. Alice Childress - Ben Folds Five

Although Ben Folds Five have another song called ‘Where's Summer B.?’, that actually refers to a person’s name. The more summery song to me is ‘Alice Childress’, opening as it does with the lyric: ‘Some summers in the evening after 6 or so, I walk on down the hill, and maybe buy a beer’. A girl at school taped the first two Ben Folds Five albums for me, and I later saw them on their final tour (until the reunion) in 1999. That is probably why I am including it. But it does feel like it captures the melancholy, listless quality of a summer spent in the wrong place. The lyrics were written by Ben Folds’ then wife in an attempt to parody his style. Yet they accidentally wrote a classic.

Are these actually the ten ‘greatest’ summer songs? I cannot guarantee it. But my original title was ‘Eclectic Summer Playlist’, and you have to admit I have achieved that.

Feel free to let me know your favourite summer song, as long as you don’t criticise my selections in any way.

Enjoy the natural climate variance,
Nick