Songs that are about, or at least highlight, the END of summer

Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game

Wait, this is about a "winter's day", right?

Really, "All Summer Long" and "Night Moves" put pretty much everything else on this thread to shame, I'd say. (Though "Boys of Summer" and "Hot Fun in the Summertime" might come close.)

frank sinatra ~ "when the wind was green"

elliott smith ~ "summer of sam"

It closes American Grafitti, and Simpson's "Summer of 4 ft 2" in tribute.

It's at least an IMPLIED end-of-summer song, written about (good) memories of summers past.

not sure who sings it but its annoying radio blurb....

"You say your summer has gone..."

Haha yeah, it's a stretch. I still associate that song with the end of summer, or early fall. Partly the harmonies, partly the title, definitely the nostalgic, memories-are-crystallizing vibe of it. And the flute solo.

The sun shines high above
The sounds of laughter
The birds swoop down upon
The crosses of old grey churches
We say that we're in love
While secretly wishing for rain
Sipping coke and playing games
September's here again
September's here again

Bobby Goldsboro: Summer (the first time).
"Was a hot afternoon -the last day of June- And the sun was a demon."

Very "end of summer" vibe on this record, in spite of the seasonal placing on the opening line. Particularly in the swooping strings after the "I saw the sunrise as a man" line. A great, great record, in fact.

One summer never ends
One summer never begins
It keeps me standing still
It takes all my will
And then suddenly
Last summer

Garth Brooks's "That Summer" (another one about being deflowered by an older woman) feels pretty verge-of-autumn as well, maybe because he keeps talking about wheatfields, and also because maybe all songs wistfully nostaglic for summer = late summer, except when they don't.

bebel gilberto - august song
beautiful and very melancholic

Blanche - "Another Lost Summer"

oh, it hasn't?...(raises eyebrow)

Garth Brooks's "That Summer" (another one about being deflowered by an older woman) feels pretty verge-of-autumn as well, maybe because he keeps talking about wheatfields, and also because maybe all songs wistfully nostaglic for summer = late summer, except when they don't.

But Garth is from Oklahoma, where most of the wheat grown is winter wheat. Winter wheat is typically harvested in mid June, not even summer!

I dig the song, though, and agree that it fits in the thread.

"It brings me good weather... It keeps me together... It picks me up when I'm -- DOWN..."

KD Lang's Summer Fling

always gave me that feeling I hope newer music would have in this vain. Not perfect, but timely.

Steve Goldberg - Summer's Ending

-- Doctor Casino (agode...), Saturday 6:02 AM. (Doctor Casino)

You don't know anything about surfing. Go watch some Gidget reruns to prevent further embarrassment.

It was actually the song that made me want to make the thread (along with "David's Last Summer") but it slipped my mind when I actually got around to posting it.

Judas Priest - "Last Rose Of Summer"

Don't forget the version by Eugenius.

XTC's Harvest Festival is a shocking omission, actually. Consider it belatedly added.

Cousteau: "The Last Good Day Of The Year"

Thin White Rope, 'Thing', off Moonhead

The way the two of you were standing outside the door
I knew it was the end of your dream
And when you walked into the room without your girl
You didn't have to say a word to me

In the long lonesome summer many things will change
A lot of part time friends will move along
When good times have you smiling I know you're in there dying
Because it's just another good time gone

One of the times we got to work a little late
For drinking on a night too hot to sleep
You said you didn't mind going on this way
As long as it was good enough for me

They say the weather's changing, seasons are rearranging
Summer's never been this long before
Sometimes it makes me spin how things were so different then
But lately they aren't different anymore

"Dyin' All Young" by Chuck Prophet, which has the great lines:
He broke his mama's heart
Something pulled him like the tide
Up on the banks of Methodonia
Laid down and closed his eyes

3+ years without "Summer Nights" from Grease?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axjrEAvib5o

^1 of my fav songs of the last few yrs

How about Abba's "Our Last Summer"?

Cruzados, "Summer's Come, Summer's Gone" (from 1987)

Jonathan Richman - "That Summer Feeling"

When even fourth grade starts looking good
Which you hated
And first grade's looking good too
Overrated
And you boys long for some little girl that you dated
Do you long for her or for the way you were?
That summer feeling is gonna haunt you the rest of your life

― Mark (MarkR), Saturday, August 19, 2006 1:04 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this song is enormously moving to me btw

Fennesz - Endless Summer works for this thread, as does:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9buNckusos0

beach boys, "girl don't tell me," which looks at the beginning of this summer thru the lens of the end of last summer, and therefore is really about the end of last summer when it gets right down to it.

"Urge For Going" by Joni Mitchell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV3DbemBDhU

Style Council - Long Hot Summer

Taylor Swift, "Tim McGraw"

Just a boy in a Chevy truck,
That had a tendency of gettin’ stuck,
On backroads at night
An’ I was right there beside him all summer long
An’ then the time we woke up to find that summer’d gone

Dusty Springfield - Summer Is Over
Carole King - I Didn't Have Any Summer Romance

christy cummins, "summer memories"

(i'm spending my evening following youtube links for something called "teensound girls," which seems to be an endless collection of second-rate late '50s and early '60s girl group pop with deliciously weird arrangements by people like christy cummins, courtney rain, clairette clement, bernadette carroll, claudia carithose and literally dozens of others who i know nothing or next-to-nothing about, and half of whose names appear to be misspelled on these clips, and i love that there was a singer named christy cummins, and it occurs to me that everyone i listed above and most of what i have listened to so far are artists whose first and/or last name begins with a C, even though i am just aimlessly following youtube links, and, well, this particular song is called "summer memories" so there you go.)

Fuzzy - Summer Is Gone

In Flames -- Darker Times (first line: "September is here again.")

Ash "Oh Yeah", but that's about the start of the summer

Yo La Tengo's "Summer," though I can't really tell if it's about the end of summer. The melancholy feel and line "'til the summer comes undone" make it seem like it is.

Loudon Wainwright III - "Summer's Almost Over"

On Some Faraway Beach, Eno?

According to Ken Emerson (in his Stephen Foster book Doo Dah), Thomas Moore's 19th Century "'Tis The Last Rose Of Summer" (a song I'm not sure I've ever heard) "may have been the first song ever to sell more than a million copies." (Sheet music, obviously.)