It’s 11 p.m. If I get this post up in a hurry I’ll slide a Flashback Friday in just in time. Tonight marks the start of my weeklong summer vacation: two days of weekend, two days of staycation, four days of actual vacation and one more day of weekend. Yes, please and thank you.

For the vacation part of the week, the Modern Love Machine and I will be heading to NYC during which time we will eat and drink well, catch a museum and a Mets game (and unintentionally, a Nas concert) and wander the city. After hardly a vacation day since my January journey to the other side of the world, I am more than ready for this little break.

Even though we’re flying, the timing of it all and the fact that this is playing the role of my “big summer trip” this year makes me think of summer road trips from days gone by. My parents and I always got away for a trip or two each summer. The soundtracks of those journeys were the Modern Dad’s mixtapes. The MD graduated high school in 1968, and his taste in music didn’t age much beyond that, which should explain everything about why my own taste in music is deeply rooted in ’60s tunes.

So in honor of both the upcoming NYC jaunt, the MD’s mixtapes and summer vacations of yore, I present three New York-themed Flashback Friday songs, none of which are “New York State of Mind;” “New York, New York” or “Empire State of Mind.” Because those would be way too obvious, right?

This first one, well, it is so cheesy and saccharine you might not be able to get past the first few lines. It’s by B.J. Thomas, better known for “Hooked On a Feeling” and “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” (and if you haven’t seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, well, too bad for you). This song is somehow about New York City without sounding at all like it is about New York City. I don’t get it, but then I’ve never claimed to understand the ’60s.

Not that this song sounds any more like it belongs to New York City. Though it was written by Harry Nilsson, whose “Everybody’s Talking” and “Coconut” I adore, it was the cover by Sinead O’Connor from the You’ve Got Mail soundtrack I fell in love with.

And finally, “The Only Living Boy in New York,” which sounds much more to me like it is of New York. Simon and Garfunkel were one of my emo musical acts of choice during my teenage years. As a bonus, this song includes my favorite lyric pertaining to being on vacation: “I get all the news I need from the weather report.” Indeed and amen.