Happy Monday! It’s all officially summer now, what with the summer solstice occurring late last week, so let’s look at some of my favorite songs about summer and summer-related stuff.

1. Don Henley, “Boys of Summer”: Did you know the Ataris did a cover of this song, only instead of a “Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac” it’s a “Black Flag sticker” on the Caddy? I’m pretty sure the Venn Diagram of people who drive Cadillacs and people who would put a Black Flag sticker on their car has zero overlap.
2. Mungo Jerry, “In the Summertime”: It’s all loosey-goosey and jugbandy. Feels like the most casual, tossed-off thing in the world, which is perfect for summer. We’ll just ignore the bit about, “If her daddy’s rich, taker her out for a meal/If her daddy’s poor, just do what you feel,” which feels a little like Mungo Jerry and his ridiculous hair ought to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
3. Sublime, “Doin’ Time”: Ever heard a ’90s alt-punk band borrow liberally from Gershwin? Well, you have now! And it actually works surprisingly well.
4. Glen Phillips, “Winter Pays For Summer”: I rather like the idea that the reward for dealing with the season you don’t like is the season you do like. The winter, that is, pays for the summer, though in my case I think it works the opposite (I hate summer heat. I should escape to cooler climes, but I’m pretty locked-in here in Fairfax County).
5. Wilco, “Summer Teeth”: Does the title make any sense? Does it matter if it does? Not even a little. This bright bite of poppy bubblegum is from the similarly-named album Summerteeth, which is likewise full of Brian Wilson-esque tunes to bop along to as a summer night stretches out before you.
6. Better Than Ezra, “Summerhouse”: It’s about a summer house, but more accurately it’s about a murder that no one really seems to care about. So it goes.
7. Iron & Wine, “Summer in Savannah”: From that weird, experimental period where Iron & Wine tried to pretend they weren’t an old-timey string band sort of thing and were just a bunch of synth nerds. You can be both, Sam Beam. You can be both.
8. The Head and the Heart, “Summertime”: With enough reverb on the guitar for a Ventures solo and enough yearning to make Brian Wilson blush.
9. The Beach Boys, “Fun, Fun, Fun”: We’ve already established that the Beach Boys were the quintessential band of summer, and “Fun, Fun, Fun” is one of their absolute best summertime tunes. Joyriding in a T-Bird? Saying you’re going to the library when you’re going out cruising? It’s such a time capsule of the early 1960s. I can just see Harrison Ford and Opie searching for the Wolfman while this song plays.
10. Ray LaMontagne, “Summer Clouds”: A wistful, finger-picked ballad that feels like a Sunday morning in October kind of song, a longing remembrance of the past.