Summer doesn’t ask for much. Just a stretch of sunlit days, a group of friends you can be a little too honest with, a place to lie down and watch the sky—and music. Always music.

The kind that filters into your skin when you’re half-awake in the backseat, or makes you want to dance like you’re the main character in your own indie movie. A summer song isn’t just a melody; it’s a memory, bottled in three minutes and some change.

If you're trying to build the perfect soundtrack for your sun-soaked, blue-hour, everything-feels-a-bit-too-real teenage summer, these eight songs aren’t just suggestions—they’re requirements.

Image Credits: Pixabay from Pexels

1. “Alcohol-Free” – TWICE

This song feels like sipping something sweet and fizzy under a sunset, all sugar and sparkle. TWICE somehow manages to make a song about being tipsy on love feel like a chilled mocktail on a beach somewhere you can’t pronounce but dream about anyway. It’s flirty, light, and fun—perfect for crushes that haven’t even turned into text messages yet.

Just vibes and heartbeats. This has to be one of my favorite TWICE songs. In their energetic, sunset-binding rhythms, you will find yourself twirling in a sundress amidst the seaside breeze, wearing sunglasses too big for your face.

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2. “double take” – dhruv

Soft-spoken but sharp in all the right places, double take is for those late nights when everything feels a little too much. Dhruv’s voice feels like someone whispering into your pillow at 2 a.m.—gentle, unsure, achingly real. It’s the sound of watching someone you like fall for someone else, and pretending you’re okay with it.

It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t need to. "double take" is one of those love songs meant for summer, in between heartbreaks that don't break cleanly and flickering phone screen lights in mellow, humid air. This song always has a special, tender vibe to it. To me, this song would always be a soft spot for July moonlights.

3. “Heat Waves” – Glass Animals

There’s a reason Heat Waves refuses to fade. It captures something sticky and restless—like being trapped inside your own head during the dog days of August. The beat feels warped, almost like it’s melting, and the lyrics are soaked in regret, hope, and heat.

It’s a late-summer anthem for thinking about all the things you didn’t say and the ones you still might. Listening to it will take you back to "Never Have I Ever", or the adorable, glistening cases of hearts melting in a pair and glowing inside the ribs. It is a classic and will always be— it will remain the anthem for summer, teenage dreams.

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4. “Attention” – NewJeans

NewJeans gives Attention that breathless, glittery energy of walking past your crush and pretending not to look. It’s playful, but precise—every beat sharp and breezy, like wind in your hair on a fast-moving bike. The song is about wanting to be seen, but not quite saying it out loud.

Which, let’s be honest, is most of teenage life. If I had to describe it, I would compare it to a can of freshly-opened soda, frizzly and sweet, bubbling with an unknown and uncertain excitement. Yet it is only with this sort of uncertainty can we feel the most grounded fervors of youth: lip gloss smudged from laughing too hard, stolen glances, the thrill of being noticed.

5. “Cruel Summer” – Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift did something dangerous here—she turned longing into a sport and made it sound euphoric. Cruel Summer is messy, dramatic, giddy, and glorious. It’s the sound of secrets held in sunburnt hands, of falling in love when you’re not supposed to, of screaming lyrics at the sky because that’s the only thing that makes it feel real.

This isn’t a want. It’s a need.

6. “Watermelon Sugar” – Harry Styles

This one’s basically bottled sunshine. Watermelon Sugar doesn’t ask you to think—it just wants you to feel. And not in a heavy way.

In a sipping-cold-fruit-on-a-hot-day kind of way. Harry’s vocals are breezy, the horns are addictive, and the whole thing feels like running down the beach with sand in your shoes and someone yelling your name in the distance.

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7. “Summertime Sadness” – Lana Del Rey

Not every summer song has to be happy. Some of them should sting. Summertime Sadness is the ache you feel when the fun ends too soon, or when you realize the person you love is slipping away even as you hold them.

Lana’s voice is smoky and soft, like driving down an empty highway at dusk with the top down and no destination. It’s glamour, grief, and grit, all rolled into one.

8. “Levitating” – Dua Lipa

If summer had a dance floor, Levitating would be the song spinning on repeat. It’s got that sparkly, untouchable feeling of youth—the nights when you don’t care what anyone thinks, when you feel invincible, when the world is too wide and too wild to stay still. Dua Lipa’s confidence is contagious. One listen and suddenly you’re dancing barefoot in your kitchen, completely in love with life.

So? Build Your Playlist Now!

Summer won’t last forever, but the right songs can make it feel like it does. These eight tracks aren’t just background noise—they become the moment. The right chorus at the right time can change everything: how you remember a person, how you frame a day, how you carry the weight of being a teen trying to feel everything all at once.

So build your playlist. Play it loud. Dance with your friends.

Cry if you need to. Fall in love a little. And when September comes, hit replay. Because these songs won’t just remind you of summer—they’ll bring it back.