This song was a childhood staple, the kind that played in the background of summers I didn’t realize I would miss, I remember getting C’mon, C’mon cd when I was four just for this song specifically, it was all over the radio and I have genuine childhood memories of my mom and I listening to the cd and soak up the sun playing, it was our most favorite, my mom kept the cd in her black Nissan Maxima, me in the backseat in my little car seat just singing my heart out while she drives, I say all of this to really paint the picture. That is what this song reminds me of most: my mom driving me to gymnastics, and us listening to it.
I’m going to see Sheryl Crow play the sunset set at High Water Music Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, in a few weeks, and I can already tell it’s going to be the peak of my summer!
Like, I’m so beyond excited to experience this with my mom, there’s no better person I could think of to see Sheryl Crow with!
Soak up the sun deserves to be the soundtrack of the summer because it just invokes nostalgia, I think of popsicles, the blow up kiddie pool we used to have when I was little, it just instantly makes me feel sunny and happy and that everything is going to be alright, the lyrics “ I’m gonna soak up the sun while it’s still free” “ I’m gonna soak up the sun before it goes out on me” listening with adult ears instead of child ones aren’t just catchy—they feel like a mindset.
They’re a reminder to live your life as it is, not as you wish it could be. To make the most of what you have, even if it’s not perfect. You don’t need the best of everything to enjoy your life—you just have to choose to.
There’s something really freeing in that. The idea that you can still have fun, still feel joy, still soak it all in… no matter where you are or what your life looks like.
In a time where everything feels fast, curated, and constantly compared, this song brings things back to something simpler. It doesn’t ask for perfection—it just asks you to show up and enjoy it.
That’s why it works for 2026.
Because maybe this is the summer we stop overthinking, stop waiting, and just let ourselves have fun again.
Windows down. Music up. No pressure to be anything other than exactly where we are.
Just soaking it all in.
I feel like this year, more than ever, we are coming back to analog hobbies, video cameras, digital cameras, I’m for one, sick of every little micro trend.
When she sings, “it’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got,” it lands in a completely different way now. I understand it more than ever—and it honestly hits my soul.
The world moves so fast, and if you try to keep up with all the trends, you’ll never be able to.
In closing, maybe this is the summer we stop waiting for everything to be perfect—and just start living. Windows down, music up, and nothing to prove.
More than anything, I want to bring back the carefree feeling that this song invokes; it’s something that feels really rare but is so important right now.
This was written by our contributing writer, Savannah Byus.
Image Source: Pexels, Mikhail Nilov
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