It’s fourteen degrees centigrade in my room, much colder out, and at this point in January summer feels like a friend you’ve lost touch with and will never see again, but sometimes semi-recognise in the faces of strangers in the street; and in this song. 

I don’t remember a time when this song didn’t exist. I don’t remember any one time I’ve heard it on the radio. In my head it’s jumbled up with in-line-skating, loudly-patterned leggings, pineapple and cheese cubes on sticks, an oversaturated yellow mess of nostalgia beyond emotion. The song tells much the same story as Janet Jackson’s ‘Whoops Now’ four years later: school’s boring, her boss is lame, the only thing that gets her through is — is the chorus, the way it rolls with blithe certainty into the hook, whistling and tootling doo doo doos, as sure as summer. Vague discontent gives way to wordless contentment. 

You can’t hear this song and not feel the sun come out, somewhere inside — or even outside. I’ve been listening to this song over and over, writing this, and as I type I’ve just noticed the sun peek out from behind the clouds to shine its smile in through my window. Summer’s going to come back, inevitable as a laid-back drum loop, as heartwarming as a saxophone solo. So: smile!

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