Tomorrow is August 1, and you could state that we’re officially at the height of summer 2019. Or you can argue that summer actually begins right at this moment, because Haim are back with a new song called “Summer Girl” and everything feels like we’ve been led to this exact moment.
Co-produced by Rostam and Ariel Rechtshaid, “Summer Girl” serves as the Los Angeles sister trio’s first new music since 2017 album Something to Tell You. And it owes a bit of musical debt to Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.”
The song, however, has another, more serious source of inspiration.
“I started the song when I found out my partner had cancer,” writes Danielle Haim in a press release. “I was on tour and felt like I was trying to send positive energy his way almost telepathically. Whenever I would come home in between shows I wanted to be his sunshine — his summer when he was feeling dark. His hope when he was feeling hopeless.”
Listen to it below, via its music video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.