by Daniel Nkado
Some songs make you dance. Others make you remember. For millennials, Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Good Time” does both — a happy song that somehow brings tears, carrying us back to summers when life was easy, bright, and beautifully unplanned.
For many millennials, “Good Time” by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen is one of those rare ones — the kind of song that sneaks up on you when you least expect it. Maybe you’re driving home after a long day, or folding laundry, or scrolling through old photos, and suddenly, those familiar synths hit.
And just like that, you’re not here anymore. You’re back in 2012!
The Summer That Still Lives Somewhere in You
Back then, “Good Time” was everywhere — radio, parties, dorm rooms, car rides to nowhere. It was the soundtrack to a summer that felt like it would never end.
The lyrics were simple, almost childlike:
“Woke up on the right side of the bed…”
But maybe that was the point. Life back then was simpler — or at least it felt that way. You didn’t need a five-year plan. You didn’t worry about inflation or burnout or whether you were doing enough with your life. You just wanted to have a good time.
The music video, with its road trips, campfires, and laughter under string lights, wasn’t just a visual — it was a mirror. It looked like us. Our friends, our summers, our innocence. A collage of memories that time has been quietly pulling away from us, piece by piece.
Why It Hurts So Sweetly Now
Listening to “Good Time” today feels like opening an old drawer and finding something that still smells faintly of your youth.
It’s not sadness exactly — more like a tender ache. The kind that reminds you how fast everything changed. We’ve grown up, but the song stayed the same. The same carefree chorus that once made you want to dance now makes you stare out the window for a second too long. Because you know what’s gone: that lightness, that unfiltered joy, that ability to live without overthinking.
One fan said it best online: “Here I am alone in my den crying to old early 2000s pop songs like Good Time by Owl City…”
Another chimed in:
“Remember when songs were just about having fun? When are we getting that back?”
We’re not, really. But that’s okay. Songs like “Good Time” exist to remind us that we had it — and that maybe we can still find little bits of it, even now.
A Generation’s Shared Memory
It’s funny how one three-minute pop song can turn into a collective diary entry.
Scroll through Reddit or X, and you’ll find hundreds of millennials admitting that “Good Time” still makes them cry. Not because the song is sad, but because they changed.
One person shared, “I played ‘Good Time’ for my Gen Alpha niece, and she said, ‘This sounds like a TikTok filter song.’ I almost cried.”
It’s bittersweet — watching the things that shaped us turn into artefacts. Our “summer anthems” are now someone else’s throwback playlist. But that’s the beauty of nostalgia: it hurts because it mattered.
Finding Joy Again, Differently
The truth is, we can’t go back. The summer of 2012 is gone. The people we were then — gone too, in small ways. But maybe “Good Time” still has something to teach us. Maybe the point isn’t to relive the past but to remember how it felt to be present.
To stop overanalysing our lives and growth, and just exist in small, happy moments again. Because somewhere in the middle of all these bills, deadlines, and endless scrolling, there’s still a version of us that wants to dance barefoot under bad lighting and sing out loud without thinking about how we sound.
So when “Good Time” comes on, don’t skip it. Let it play. Turn it up. Let it take you back. Smile, cry, whatever. That song is your time machine — proof that joy, once felt, never really disappears. It just changes form. Let it continue to remind you of a time in the past, when fun was just something that just happens, that needn’t to be earned.
And maybe — just maybe — there are still more “good times” waiting ahead, even if they look a little different now.
Because deep down, that summer version of you?
They’re still in there.
Still humming along.
Still believing —
“It’s always a good time.”
