Songfacts®:

• This is the title track and lead single of Cassadee Pope's Summer EP. Asked by Billboard magazine what the season means to her, the Sunshine State native replied: "I think it's just having fun with the people you love, and not sweating the small stuff. I remember that on summers growing up, I was either in Florida with friends and hanging out with my main crush, or feeling the rush of being able to do whatever you wanted to do."
  
  "It's just the best feeling in the world," Pope added. "I think it's just the feeling of freedom and being able to enjoy yourself with no timeline."
• The video was filmed at Clearwater Beach, Florida. "It was an all-day shoot, well into the night," Pope said. "We tried to make it look like it was a look at a relationship over a two-month period of time, which is really hard to do in one day. It was very fast-paced, going from location to location. It's a bold video, a different side of me that people have never seen before. I pushed the boundaries a little bit."
• Cassadee Pope wrote the song with Kelly Archer and Emily Shackleton. She recalled to The Boot: "We sat in a room and reminisced on summer loves that we had in the past, and how powerful and passionate it can feel at the time. Then, when you look back on it, it's just a memory, and it's still so vivid in your mind. We wanted to write a song that was very colorful; The lyrics really tell a story."
• Pope had written the song a few years before, and wasn't sure if she wanted to record it for the EP. "I started showing my favorite songs to all of my friends and family, and Chris Young and some other artists that I really confided in," she noted, "and 'Summer' was one of everybody's favorites."
• The song's steamy music video features Pope amorously kissing her love interest. She originally envisioned the guy to be played by her boyfriend, All Time Low drummer Rian Dawson. "I actually begged him to be in the video," Pope said. "But he's first of all, is an amazing, amazing supporter of mine, and he has been since the beginning, since six-and-a-half years ago before The Voice, before everything. And he was just like, 'I'm not an actor. I want you to get the best of the best for this video. I want it to be amazing, and I don't think I will be able to deliver that because I'm not an actor - I'm a drummer in All Time Low, that's what I do.'"
  
  "So I told him, I said, 'Well, I really want to go for it in this, are you comfortable with that?'" Pope added. "And he said, 'One hundred percent. I want you to win an award for this video or awards for this video. Obviously, I want you to go for it.' So, he's been nothing but supportive, and he tweeted about it and called Sam a stud. So, if that tells you anything about him, he's very, very supportive all around."