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Summer, 1975. I'm 12 years old, walking along the boardwalk at Wildwood Crest. The pinball arcades buzz and clang. Kids scream as they ride the Jack Rabbit rollercoaster. The air is thick with cotton candy, cheese steak and vinegar fries. And ebbing and flowing behind it all, in continuously breaking waves of harmony, is the song "I'm Not In Love."

I don't know who 10cc is, but they seem to know exactly who I am. A kid who is discovering the opposite sex. The summer before, I still believed that girls had cooties, that contagious disease of otherness, to be avoided at all costs. Now suddenly, I can't stop staring at the hip-swinging parade of cut-off jeans and halter tops. And this leads me to thoughts of Sherrie Halsey. Blonde haired, blue eyed Sherrie. The prettiest girl in my 7th grade class. A month before, she wrote in my yearbook, "You're a great (and cute) guy! I hope to see you around this summer!!" Words that left me flushed, dizzy, confused.

"I'm not in love so don't forget it, it's just a silly phase I'm going through"...That's all this is, a silly phase. In a week, I'll be back home with my cootie-fearing buddies, trading comic books.

"And just because I call you up, don't get me wrong, don't  think you got it made"...If I call her, it won't mean we're going steady, right?

"I'm not in love, no, no"...I bet she'd look great in a halter top and cut-offs, walking next to me on the Jersey shore.

I bought the 45 of "I'm Not In Love" and played it all summer long. I've listened to the song thousands of time since, and it always fills me with longing, nostalgia and tender feelings. It takes me back to Wildwood on the Jersey shore. More than any song, it defines summer for me.

I'm sure all pop fans, whether casual or rabid, have their own #1 summer songs. And I'm sure that most of them were discovered during adolescence. Not much mystery there. Aside from being more impressionable in our youth, we have endless hours to listen to music.

But what is it about summer as a backdrop for pop music?

Summer means school's out, a time we trade the tyranny of reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic for the more preferable three R's of recreation, relaxation and romance. It wasn't always that way. Before the turn of the 20th century, American kids in rural areas went to school most of the year, with short breaks in spring and fall to help with family farming. Urban kids had it worse, hitting the books for 48 weeks a year. Eventually, educational reformers gave weary teachers and restless kids a break during June, July and August.

Once the summer vacation was in place, popular music was there to glorify it. 1902's "In The Good Old Summertime" was the first big hit to praise the newly minted golden season. It painted pictures of "strollin' thru a shady lane with your baby mine / You hold her hand and she holds yours and that's a very good sign." From there, the century sizzled with summer songs-"Summertime" to "Summertime Blues," "Under The Boardwalk" to "California Girls," "Hot Fun In The Summertime" to "Cruel Summer" and hundreds more.

Of course, a song doesn't have to be about summer to qualify as your summer song. As long as it became a hit during the summer, and captured that warm, dreamy languor of the season. That's what "I'm Not In Love" did for me then and still does for me now.

So it's now over to you, MOJO Blog readers. What's your #1 summer song?

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