In Summer

"In Summer" is a masterwork of comic-dramatic irony — a snowman singing rapturously about warmth and sun, delivered by Josh Gad with a commitment to the bit that elevates what could be a throwaway novelty number into something genuinely charming. The musical style deliberately evokes a classic "I want" song from older Hollywood musicals, complete with a big-band jazz arrangement that sounds like summer itself — breezy horns, swinging rhythm section, the whole production saturated with the golden warmth that Olaf is imagining. Gad's voice is not a classical musical theater instrument but that's entirely beside the point; his delivery is all character and specificity, each verse adding new layers of unwittingly doomed fantasy — the beach, margaritas, hot sand. The song's comedy deepens when you bring narrative knowledge to it: Olaf is describing, in loving detail, the conditions that would immediately destroy him, and his oblivious enthusiasm makes this existentially funnier with each new image. There's also a genuine sweetness underneath the irony — the song captures the quality of hope uncomplicated by experience, the imagination of pleasure untouched by knowledge of consequence. As a character song it's remarkably efficient, telling us everything we need to know about Olaf — his warmth, his innocence, his magnificent lack of self-preservation instinct. Delightful at any age.