CFO Summer Playlist 2026

With Fourth of July just around the corner, we’re bringing back a refreshed CFO summer playlist — shining a light on some notable songs that explore the themes of money and finance.

The playlist is eclectic. Some picks are celebratory and some somber, and they stretch across several periods and genres that may resonate with some more than others. For example, I’m a Jersey-girl turned Midwesterner. As far as I’m concerned The Boss — Bruce Springsteen — has to be part of any playlist and I love the story of the sailor waiting for payday in “Pay me my Money Down.”

But I also enjoyed learning about songs new to me as readers and a colleague shared some of their favorite tunes. Thanks to Katie Pyzyk, lead reporter at our sister publication Packaging Dive, for suggestions that included the satirical TikTok-born earworm “Man in Finance,” to the AICPA’s Bill Ferguson for “Money for Nothing,” to David Weber, a professor of fraud and forensic accounting at West Virginia University, for his pick of “Sequestered in Memphis,” and to Robert Pawlewicz, associate professor and accounting department chair at University of Richmond, for his pick “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked.”

A number of tough themes thread through the songs. After all, money is sometimes interwoven with desire, greed, jealousy and crime. But money is also celebratory and an important means of showing love and caring for others. “Money is free but love costs more than our bread,” musician Sean Rowe writes cryptically in the lyrics of one of his songs featured in the list, noting that he hopes that when his son is older he will understand what the song-writer meant. “I was just trying to leave something behind.”

Happy Listening! You can access our playlist on Spotfiy here.