summer

"summer" by Squee is a profound exploration of grief, specifically the loss of a childhood best friend and the innocence associated with youth. The song captures the duality of summer—traditionally a symbol of warmth, freedom, and joy—and twists it into a backdrop for profound loss and nostalgia. The meaning is rooted in the "wobbly" feelings of early grief; the kind of pain that is so overwhelming it initially presents as complete numbness before speeding up into a frantic, heart-beating panic.

By heavily distorting the instrumentals and vocal deliveries, Squee mirrors the way trauma and time distort our memories. The song serves as a foreboding introduction to the album's overarching theme of indescribable pain. It is both an apology for the loss the listener is about to experience and a comforting arm around the shoulder. The central message conveys that the grief we carry for our childhood bonds permanently alters our emotional landscape, turning even the brightest memories into bittersweet, ghostly echoes.

The lyrics of "summer" weave a fragmented, heavily distorted narrative of a past that is slipping away, painting a wobbly picture of feelings the narrator is struggling to fully comprehend. It opens with blurred, lo-fi memories of childhood summers, capturing the suffocating heat, the aimless wandering, and the specific, golden hue of days spent side-by-side with a best friend. As the verses progress, the innocent and carefree imagery begins to unravel, introducing a creeping sense of dread and the realization of impending loss. The narrator speaks of feeling emotionally numb, likening their mental state to novocaine injected straight into the brain—where the pain of reality is anticipated but temporarily muffled under thick layers of confusion, denial, and slow-moving thoughts.

The chorus bursts forth with raw, almost screamed confessions of missing someone who is no longer there, contrasting the idyllic, sun-drenched backdrop of the season with an overwhelming, suffocating internal winter. The words express a deep, wobbly sorrow—feelings the narrator is unsure how to process, capturing the complicated amalgamation of grief, profound love, and the painful passage of time. Through pitchy, desperate harmonies, the song recounts specific, seemingly mundane moments shared with the lost friend—riding bikes, sitting in the humid air, wasting time online—elevating these quiet memories into devastating monuments of grief.

As the tempo shifts and speeds up, mimicking a racing, panicked heartbeat, the lyrics become more frantic, reflecting the sudden, sharp return of feeling after the numbness wears off. The narrator wrestles with the permanence of this absence, crying out against the unfairness of growing up and leaving pieces of your soul behind. It closes with a haunting repetition of a simple, broken phrase, acting as a foreboding comfort that apologizes for the pain of moving forward. The final lines linger in the distortion, serving as a ghostly reminder that while the summer inevitably ends, the phantom ache of those lost days and lost friends will continue to echo.

"summer" was created by the American-Canadian indie musician Gabe, who operates under the solo moniker Squee (and is also known for his work in Midwestern Roadkill and the duo bl4ck m4rket c4rt). The track serves as the opening song for his eponymous 2024 album, squee, and was later featured on the 2025 release, squee LP2. The project was born out of a desire to create a DIY metaproject that captured the intense, fever-dream nostalgia of youth and the visceral pain of growing up. Drawing heavy inspiration from the ambiance and soul of artists like Alex G, but injecting it with a harsher, grungier Midwest emo sensibility, Gabe recorded the track to process indescribable personal pain. Reviewers noted that the creation of the album seemed deeply tied to navigating the grief of losing a childhood best friend, turning raw, unpolished recordings into an auditory embodiment of mourning.

The rhyme scheme of "summer" is largely unstructured, favoring a stream-of-consciousness delivery over traditional, predictable AABB or ABAB patterns. Squee utilizes slant rhymes and internal assonance to create a conversational, almost diary-like intimacy. This lack of rigid structure allows the raw emotion of the lyrics to dictate the flow of the song. The rhythmic structure is where the track truly excels in storytelling. The meter is intentionally erratic. The song opens with a lethargic, dragging tempo that mirrors a state of emotional paralysis and depression. However, as the song progresses and the realization of loss sets in, the rhythm drastically shifts. The drums begin to play slightly off-time, accelerating into a chaotic, rapid-fire beat that simulates the physical sensation of a panic attack or a rapidly beating heart. This masterful interplay between the lyrical narrative of waking up from numbness and the musical rhythm racing out of control creates a deeply immersive, anxiety-inducing, yet cathartic listening experience.

Squee employs a variety of unconventional musical and stylistic techniques on "summer" to convey its profound emotional weight. Musically, the track is defined by its harsh, grungy Midwest emo guitar tones heavily saturated in fuzz and distortion. This creates a "wobbly" sonic texture that mimics the feeling of instability and disassociation. One of the most notable techniques is the use of pitchy, strained vocal harmonies; instead of striving for perfect pitch, the vocals are delivered with a raw, emotionally exhausted timbre that makes the listener feel the narrator's pain breaking through the mix. The rhythmic pacing is highly dynamic—it begins with a slow, numb tempo that resembles the effects of novocaine, before suddenly speeding up into an erratic, off-time drumbeat that perfectly replicates a racing, panic-stricken heart. Literarily, the lyrics rely heavily on sensory imagery and visceral metaphors, using the warmth of summer to ironically juxtapose the coldness of grief. The production values embrace a DIY, lo-fi aesthetic, utilizing ambient noise and sudden volume shifts to disorient the listener, pulling them directly into Squee's chaotic emotional landscape.

While "summer" by Squee is an underground, DIY track, it has left a profound impact on the niche Midwest emo and shoegaze communities. Emerging on platforms like Spotify and Bandcamp, the song—and the eponymous album it introduces—garnered deep appreciation from underground music critics and listeners for its unapologetic rawness. Reviews, such as those from Rodent Reviews, highlighted how the track successfully acts as an "auditory embodiment" of childhood grief, drawing favorable comparisons to the ambience of Alex G but with a uniquely intense, grungy edge. Within Squee's discography, "summer" stands as a defining thesis statement for the artist's sound, resonating intensely with listeners who use music as a cathartic tool to muffle the noise of their own personal tragedies and connect with their inner pain.

The central symbol in "summer" is the season itself. Traditionally representing youth, freedom, and warmth, summer is subverted here to represent a frozen moment in time—a graveyard of childhood memories that the narrator can never return to. The bright imagery of the season heavily contrasts with the dark, suffocating reality of the narrator's grief. Another profound metaphor used throughout the album and perfectly encapsulated in this track is the concept of novocaine for the brain. This represents the mind's trauma response; a deliberate numbness that slows down thoughts and temporarily blocks out the sharp agony of loss. When the "novocaine" wears off, represented by the sudden acceleration of the drums, the listener is hit with the blunt force of reality. Furthermore, the wobbly distortions applied to the instruments symbolize the fragility of memory. Just as a VHS tape warps and degrades over time, the narrator's memories of their childhood best friend are becoming distorted by the painful passage of time, emphasizing the tragedy of forgetting.

A significant recurring musical motif in "summer" is the pitchy, wailing vocal harmony that bleeds through the heavy guitar distortion. This specific vocal tone acts as an anchor throughout the track, serving as a desperate cry that cuts through the instrumental noise whenever the emotional intensity peaks. Lyrically, motifs of slow-moving thoughts and numbness repeat, highlighting the cyclical nature of grief where the narrator constantly slips between feeling nothing and feeling everything all at once. The recurring imagery of the lost summer acts as a haunting hook, cementing the season not as a time of joy, but as an inescapable ghost that haunts the narrator's present.