How ‘Summertime Forever’ Became a Beloved Camp Song Across America

There’s a song I grew up with at sleepaway camp. It was “My Camp’s Song.” Maybe you sang it too?

Well, I only wish that we could stay/

And spend the rest of every day/

In a place where it’s summertime forever

Matt Stamm wrote “Summertime Forever” for his color war team at Camp Harlam in Kunkletown, Pennsylvania in 2001. Its lyrics are a testament to our Chapel on the Hill, a shoutout to the longtime camp director, Arie Gluck (Z’’l), and an homage to another color war-born song Matt grew up singing, “Stars in the Sky.”

Honestly, I grew up loathing “Summertime Forever.” It felt corny. It was always a reminder that summer was not, in fact, forever. Even when I was the Head Songlead at camp, I avoided learning how to play the song, just so I’d never have to sing it upon request.

But as my summers at Camp Harlam have gotten further behind me, “Summertime Forever” has stayed with me. I’ve discovered close friends who grew up singing it at different camps on the other side of the country. I’ve found myself singing it, unironically, at campfires with my camp friends from time to time. And this summer, I even heard it in the trailer for “The Floaters,” Rachel Israel’s Jewish summer camp movie starring Jackie Tohn. 

How did a song written to represent one particular camp become “My Camp’s Song” at countless other camps? How did it leave the bounds of Kunkletown? Why did that used to bother me so much, and why did it stop? I called Matt to get the true history and see if we could figure out why together.

Matt had never been a songleader at camp before he wrote “Summertime Forever,” but he always looked up to them. He challenged himself to write the song that summer, and Arie thought it was so great that he asked if Matt could record it before the summer ended.

While he has returned to Harlam in recent years as a parent and staff member in the health center, for a few summers in the 2000s, Matt was an assistant director at a sister camp in Massachusetts, Eisner. Of course, he took “Summertime Forever” with him; it meant a lot to kids at Harlam, and with a few lyric changes, why couldn’t it mean a lot to kids there, too? It did.

Matt made a professional recording of this new, generic version of “Summertime Forever” and it became the standard. It made for some competitive b’nai mitzvah candle lightings in the late 2000s, when those who could somehow get the “real” version of “Summertime Forever” to play when their Harlam friends were called up were lauded for it. It was hard to find in the early days of iTunes, and we hated the generic version. It took away what made our camp special.

And maybe that’s it: Everyone thinks that their camp experience is unique and special. And it is! “Green Time” and “Shutter Wars” transformed all of us, even if our camps had different names for it. Maybe we couldn’t appreciate it at the time, and maybe we’re still confident that our version of camp was the best. But that’s the magic of camp. It lives on with us long after we drive through the gates for the last time.

Matt and I kept talking for a while, telling stories about the counselors he jammed with at Harlam this past Fourth of July who were my campers over a decade ago. We talked about Cheese, the counselor who lost me on picture day in 7th grade, and about Matt’s friend Grape Stuff, who I once had as a teacher in Israel. Matt and I have only met a few times, but the camp magic was there in an instant, pulling us together. 

In the end, Matt told me he used to regret changing the lyrics and bringing “Summertime Forever” to other camps. But now, we both see it as a total blessing. How special is it that we can connect with people near and far over how “My Camp’s Song” is actually “Our Camp’s Song”?

It’s in those moments, singing and remembering camp with Harlamites and other campers alike, that we really are in a place where it’s summertime forever.