Girls in Their Summer Clothes

"Girls in Their Summer Clothes" is a song by American recording artist Bruce Springsteen, from his album Magic.

Matched with a pop-oriented melody, Springsteen's full-throated singing, and a pop-orchestral arrangement, the lyric portrays a series of warm small-town vignettes:

Frankie's Diner, an old friend on the edge of town,

The neon sign spinning round,

Like a cross over the lost and found.

Fluorescent lights flicker over Pop's Grill,

Shaniqua brings the coffee and asks "Fill?"

and says, "Penny for your thoughts now my boy, Bill"

"Girls in Their Summer Clothes" has been cited as a singularly "breezy" song on the album, though A. O. Scott of The New York Times notes: "Not that 'Girls in Their Summer Clothes' is untouched by melancholy. Its narrator, after all, stands and watches as the girls of the title 'pass me by.'" Jay Lustig of The Star-Ledger writes that the song "unfolds gradually and at its own eccentric pace, with the music, and Springsteen's vocals, getting progressively more intense." At the 51st Grammy Awards, the song was nominated for Best Rock Song and Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, winning the former.