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It is summer, you should have a jam.

You may imagine that you are far too old, sophisticated, educated, or otherwise distanced from the zeitgeist to have a popular song that represents and evokes your relationship to this, the summer of 2018. You will say you don’t listen to that kind of music. You listen to your music, from your time. In saying this, you are assenting to your own irrelevance. You are making yourself a creature out of time, who may pass through Summer 2018, but was never actually in it. You are agreeing to be a chrononaut from 1999 or 2004 who seeks to leave this summer unengaged and undisturbed.

Get OVER yourself. LIVE. Soon you will be dead. While you live, feast, drink, and have a song of the summer.

Summer Jams are an important, distinctive category of song. They are the keystone of a soundtrack of events of your summer. It’s the sound that should underscore all the rides in convertibles, trips to the beach, and humid late-night lakeside makeout sessions that you will engage in. You may say, “But Guy, I do none of those things.” To which I would reply, “That is because you have not selected a summer jam.” 

Some would assert that you cannot simply select a summer jam. These empirical purists would argue that it is the billboard charts alone that define the most popular song of the summer. These people are soulless monsters. Yes, there is a song which sells the most over the course of a summer. This doesn’t mean it is a Summer Jam, and it certainly doesn’t mean it’s YOUR summer jam.

That said, popularity is not wholly divorced from the character of the Summer Jam. The presence of a song suffusing a summer, saturating taxis, pride floats, and shopping malls, gives a song immense power. I deeply appreciate those moments when a song appears to be reaching out to me, saying it has built a summer of sensual delights for me to enjoy. I remember a week in June of 2015 when Omi’s "Cheerleader" was always waiting around every corner. I dismissed it as coincidence, simple dumb luck for a few days, but when it found me in an Uber to a child’s first birthday party in Brooklyn, I knew it was worthy of serious consideration.
But popularity is not enough. A summer jam must speak to YOU. It must reflect YOUR summer. The Caribbean charm of "Cheerleader" was tempting, but its Neanderthal construction of gender kept me from fully submitting to it. The summer of 2015, I went with Demi Lovato’s "Cool for the Summer." Its mixture of sultry homosexuality and explosive dance beats made it a witty, dangerous adventure. There was no activity at a pool, beach, or gay bar I could engage in that it couldn’t help to heighten. It made me want to be more fun. I was, in the summer of 2015, 39 years old. I could have said I was too old and too male to be a teenage lesbian along with Demi Lovato. Wouldn’t that have been a boring choice.

The greatest summer jam of the current century was, of course, Katy Perry’s "California Gurls." It is, first, a good pop dance song. It’s got a bouncing energy that can rouse you from a hangover or work lethargy and dares you to make the most of a warm July night. Second, it evokes a sexy beach vacation destination. It helps if summer jams channel the energy of some other, better place to be engaging in summer. Mind you, I live in Los Angeles, I live in EXACTLY the California Ms. Perry sings of, but her version is still better, an essentialized Malibu that is nothing but parties and bikini tops. If you cannot live in that place for a summer, at least let your soul visit it. Oh, it’s also great if a summer jam directly lists fun things you can do in the summer. It’s easy to run out of ideas, so Snoop Dogg listing activities always really comes in handy. Finally, the song has grit, Snoop’s earthy, practical commentary on Perry’s utopian vision allow us to imagine that our base reality of a summer could, through the song, merge with this perfected California. Katy Perry’s "California Gurls" is the promise that every car ride or ice cream cone you enjoy between Memorial Day and Labor Day could be an adventure.

But the other beauty of the Summer Jam is that one song cannot fit all summers. Yes, "California Gurls" will always be a good song, but it will never be as good as it was in 2010. Every year, we must ask music and moment to meet and expand upon each other. When Carly Rae Jepsen gave me "Call Me Maybe" in 2011, I knew I had to fall in love whether I wanted it or not. Summer jams are not neat or clean, but they are, through their place in our lives, perfect.

You are alive in the summer of 2018. You will never be alive in the summer of 2018 ever again. This time is hot, sunny, and special. No one will force you to make this time special, magic, or fun, but if you choose to, there are tools available to you. Maybe it will be Lizzo, maybe Years & Years, maybe reliable ol’ Pitbull, but some artist has already written a theme song for you to drink, dance, and fuck to. Share your soul with a song this summer, so that, for the rest of your finite, beautiful life, you can use that song to, for a moment, return to the delights you made for yourself this summer.  Guy Branum is a stand-up comedian best known for his appearances on Chelsea Lately, @midnight, The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore, and The Meltdown With Jonah and Kumail. He’s also written for such TV shows as Another Period, Billy on the Street, The Mindy Project, and Awkward. He has written culture and political commentary for such publications as Slate, The New York Times, and The Huffington Post. Guy’s debut comedy album, Effable, hit #1 on the iTunes and Billboard charts, and The New York Times called the taped version “a contender for the best comedy special of 2015.” He currently hosts Talk Show the Game Show on truTV. My Life as a Goddess is his first book.