It’s Fly When Girls Stop By for the Summer(time)

Song: “Summertime Girls,” by Y&T

Year: 1985

Like warm weather, March Madness (go Heels!), and baseball, I AM BACK and ready to bring you down Aquanet-soaked memory lane on a much more frequent basis. And what better way to kick off Spring Break than with Y&T’s “Summertime Girls”? Well before LFO, there was Y&T, and Friend of the Blog Dave (aka Lone Reader Dave) requested it months ago, so this one’s for you, pal.

“Summertime Girls” is, theoretically, a mediation on women walking around in warm weather-appropriate clothing — a time-honored tradition in rock music. It’s also a celebration of Turbo half-shirts (this will be my unironic summer look, so get ready), jams, the lost art of roller blading while carrying a boom box, and trying new things with your partner without giving up your identity.

We begin with what is perhaps the greatest opening of all time. This is putting a flag down and claiming the land in the name of Y&T. It is seeing the future and knowing how to make your mark. It’s like they sat around the campfire and brainstormed a list of things they could do that would piss off every subsequent metal-adjacent band making a music video, and the heavens parted and the angels sang and here’s what we got:

So the band gathers on the beach for merriment, joyful lip-synching, and to enjoy the flood of bikini-clad ladies and also a mermaid flocking to the water.

Their metal girlfriends are like, sure, fine, is this what you want? We can try it. Sure, you fell in love with our bangin’ leather pants but we can give the sun a try.

They also give rollerblading a shot while the band plays along the boardwalk. Unlike the summertime girls, the metal ones are polite enough to *not* bring their boom boxes so as not to drown out the band’s music. That’s support.

Also, I want to be as confident about anything my life as these women are about their rollerblading abilities. They’re just like, yeah, road rash, come at me, bro.

Things come to a head when the guys decide they want to play beach volleyball. The metal girlfriends are like, “Hi, you know how we became metal af? Gym class torture. Getting picked last. Getting smashed in the face during dodgeball. So as much as we love you, no, we are not going to re-live our eighth grade nightmares for you. Just seeing a volleyball net makes us want to fake cramps, so if you could just meet us halfway on this whole beach thing, that’d be fantastic.”

(It’s possible I’m projecting but probably not.)

Alas, the guys want their full summertime experience, so the metal girls leave, understandably angry because they probably have sand in body parts they didn’t know they had.

After a jaunt along the boardwalk, the sun starts to set and the summertime folk make a mass exodus from the beach. And Y&T is like, really? We just got here. To drive home the point that EVERYONE is leaving the beach, a robot walks by. Just a robot. Clomping along the beach. Knocking some dudes down. Nothing to see here.

The guys settle down in the sand, dejected that their day at the beach has not gone as planned and alone because they’ve pissed off their girlfriends with that whole volleyball fiasco. But wait! The girls emerge from the ocean, having made their peace with the beach and they’re like, come on, lunkheads, let’s go have some fun.

Summertime girls only stick around for a season, but metal chicks are forever.