LFO's 'Summer Girls' Ranked 16th Best Summer Song Despite Its Bizarre Lyrics

New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits. Chinese food makes me sick. And Rolling Stone ranked "Summer Girls" by LFO as the 16th best summer song of all time.

The 1999 pop-rap track was boy band LFO's one and only big hit. It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, but despite its commercial success, it received heavy ridicule for its lyrical prowess - or lack thereof.

The bizarre lyrics start right off the bat. "New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits / Chinese food makes me sick / And I think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer."

The verses find the handsome white boys - Rich Cronin, Brad Fischetti, and Brian "Brizz" Gillis - rapping lines that are equally as nonsensical as the catchy refrain.

"Cherry Pez, Coke Crush, Rock Stud, Boogie / Used to hate school, so I had to play hookie," begins the second verse. What does any of it even mean? Even someone with a PhD in poetry would have trouble making sense of it all.

Now, nearly three decades later, people still wonder just WTF these guys were talking about. "The entirety of LFO's 'Summer Girls' is just a bunch of nonsensical lines that have nothing to do with the rest of the song used just for rhyming's sake," one Redditor wrote to the tune of over 500 upvotes. Vox even put out an entire guide explaining the lyrics, which they referred to as "painstakingly annotated."

"This is literally incomprehensible gibberish," the guide says regarding the first line of the first verse: "Hip hop marmalade, Spic 'N Span."

"There is no such thing [as hip hop marmalade]," it continues. "But there should be."

Only one thing from the lyrics is explicitly clear: the boys like girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published June 13, 2026 at 2:25 PM.