"Summerboy" by Lady Gaga // Song Review

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"Summerboy" by Lady Gaga has that raw, gritty New York charm that defines so much of her early work. It is featured as the second to last track on her 2008 debut album, The Fame, which is among the greatest pop records of all time and stacked with countless hits like "Just Dance", "Poker Face", and "Paparazzi", to name a few. It is really an eclectic album overall while still being very cohesive in the theming surrounding each track. In contrast to the other big singles, "Summerboy" has always felt like one of the most underrated gems in Gaga's discography. It is a breezy and carefree song about a fleeting summer romance that she knows will never last. "That's the record that every girl wishes she could sing and believe," she once said in an interview. 

Gaga wrote "Summerboy" in early 2007, after being dropped by her label at the time, Island Def Jam, and prior to getting signed to Interscope. Her management team encouraged her to try working with other producers, so she collaborated on three songs with co-writers and producers Brian Kierulf and Josh Schwartz of KNS Productions. They had previously worked on Britney Spears' Britney and In The Zone albums around this time as well, so their work with Gaga does share some sonic similarities in that regard. The other two songs they made with Gaga were titled "Heiress" and "Panty Party", neither of which were ever officially released, but have leaked online over the years. All three are campy commentaries on fame and celebrity culture, which are of course the most prominent themes of her debut album. "Summerboy" is the only one that made the final cut of her album from those recording sessions.

That unapologetic Y2K pop energy is a sound that she really embodied at the time and is especially all over the rest of Gaga's early (and mostly unreleased) material. Her signature bold, playful sound shines through in this track especially. Around the time she made it, Gaga was sharing demos on her Myspace page, including an early version of “Summerboy” back in the summer of 2007. Sonically, it's a guitar-driven pop anthem that captures the feeling of a light and fun summer fling. "Yeah, we're going nowhere fast, maybe this time, I'll be yours, you'll be mine," she sings in the opening lines.


The ethos of this song shines through in the rest of the concept behind The Fame. In a 2008 interview with On Da Grine, Gaga explained the meaning behind the record as a whole. "I'm from New York City, born and raised. I'm 22 years old, so much about my youth culture from my generation is celebrity obsession. And at the time that I was really working on this album, I started to notice, when I would open up tabloids, that these young blonde women were getting arrested and they had their mug shots taken. I sort of looked like this, and I thought to myself, 'There's really an art to fame.' So I sort of ran with that idea," she said. "I started to write more and more records with the art of fame in mind. Then I'd go out at night. So I'd be in the studio all day, and then I'd go out at night with my friends, artists in New York City's Lower East Side. And I realized that we don't have any money, we're not famous, there's no paparazzi chasing us, but when we walk on the street, people wonder who we are. And that's that inner fame. That's that swagger, that inner sense of passion for your music, your art, your style, your knowledge about what you do. It's infectious. And it's... yeah, nobody knew who I was, but everybody wanted to know who I was."

That kind of attitude and edge is present across all of the songs on The Fame, especially when it comes to the deeper cuts that make up the bulk of the record. A song like "Summerboy" radiates the innate confidence and glamour that defined so much of her early approach to music and the persona she was crafting at the time. 

I love that a song like "Summerboy" is finally having a viral moment nearly two decades following its release. It's always great to see the power of social media give a new life to songs that maybe weren't massive hits in their time, yet still held something special. Gaga even brought it back for the opening night of her Mayhem Ball Tour, making it her first performance of the song since 2007. It has always been one of the most underrated gems in her extensive discography and seeing it rediscovered by a new generation of listeners is long overdue! 


Thanks for reading! Check out more of my reviews of Lady Gaga's music, including Mayhem + more from my song of the week series.



Photo Credit: Lady Gaga, Interscope Records



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