Til Summer Comes Around

Written by Keith Urban and Monty Powell
Performed by Keith Urban on his album, "Defying Gravity"

Ironically enough, when I went to see Keith Urban in concert last summer, I hadn’t really been listening to his music that much. I mainly wanted to go to that show to see Sugarland, a band that I love—I’ll be covering one of their songs soon—but Keith did not disappoint. He put on a phenomenal show—high energy, very music and fan-focused. It may sound surprising to hear that a concert was “music focused,” but a lot of times, at any concert of a musician who has basically any resource at their fingertips, the show will be highly centered around acrobatics and spectacles; however, Keith’s stage set up was even extremely minimalist, which was strange initially, but eventually actually became refreshing. At the end of the concert (which lasted at least 3 full hours), Keith and his band stood on stage to thank the audience very sincerely for supporting what they do, because they do realize that in times like these, spending money on concerts is hard to justify—let’s face it, the tickets aren’t cheap, and they know that—then they signed autographs and made their exit. I’d never seen another artist do that before then and I’m willing to bet I won’t ever see that again. It was so rare and genuine; in that moment, Keith and his band gained another level of respect that I sadly can’t say I have for many other artists (don’t misunderstand that; I do immensely respect any musician for what they do).
Here's my view from that show (sorry it's so hard to see!):

All that to say, the first time I heard “Til Summer Comes Around” was at that concert. And appropriately so, it was summertime. Before I say anything else, I want you to hear the song if you haven’t already—it’s essential for understanding a very important element of the song: the mood.

Keith Urban   More CMT Music   More CMT Music Videos

“Mood” is a term you don’t really hear that much when people talk about songs or poetry. But “Til Summer Comes Around” won’t let me think about anything else but the mood. It’s sleepy, slow, sad, almost hypnotizing at times, too—and all this solely because of the guitar riffs and the melody. I am aware of the mood without even listening to what’s being sung, and I bet you are, too.

Because they’ve established the mood so successfully, Powell and Urban are then able to make the content fit the form perfectly. I think this is sometimes an extremely difficult thing to do; but here, the tempo, and guitar riffs work together flawlessly with the lyrics and melody. I read on theboot.com about the story behind this song—Powell said that he and Keith started with the beginning guitar riff and thought of the image of an empty amusement park at the end of summer. “Til Summer Comes Around” is what they ended up with. The way this song came to be is poetic, in itself. I know that I and other fellow-poets often start writing with a specific image in their mind. You never know where it’s going to take you—sometimes it translates well, sometimes it doesn’t. I think it’s plain to see that here, there is nothing lost in translation.

I said this about “Not Ready to Make Nice”—most of these lyrics can be read as prose. This song actually is more successful in doing so than “Not Ready to Make Nice”…here’s the first verse:

“Another long summer’s come and gone. I don’t know why it always ends this way. The boardwalk’s quiet and the carnival rides are as empty as my broken heart tonight."

This section not only reads like prose poetry; for me, it also reads like fiction or nonfiction. It sounds like the beginning of something you’d read in a book—maybe a collection of short stories. Now that I say that, this song is a short-short. Flash fiction.

In this first verse, there is no set rhyme pattern but there is some smart rhyming going on that you’re almost unaware of: quiet/rides/tonight. For the rest of the song, we see some pretty set rhyme schemes, but they don’t hinder the song like they do in some poems (since we are living in the age of free verse). These rhyme schemes help the momentum of the song—like this, in the second verse:

“I got a job workin’ at the old park pier/And every summer now for five long years/[Right here is where the momentum is so important because of the parallelism of the images and the rhyming] I grease the gears, fix the lights, tighten bolts, straighten the tracks/And I count the days til you just might come back”

If you didn’t catch it, go back and find that part of the song.

Another interesting thing this song does is work in a quote from the female character. I almost let this slip by until I listened to it very closely—

“Baby I’ll be back again”/You whispered in my ear/But now the winter wind is the only sound/And everything is closin’ down/Til Summer Comes Around"

This section also creates all these great images of literal sounds, and shows them alliteratively: Baby, be, back; whispered/winter/wind; sound/summer; closing/comes.

I waited until the end to mention the chorus. Not because it’s less important, but because it’s actually very vital to the song. The chorus is where we find why the singer is so distraught over this girl and why he stays here waiting on her, summer after summer. It kind of reminds me of Noah in The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks. Allie visits for the summer, they fall in love. Eventually she has to go back home but he stays there where they first met, waiting on her to come back. Ironically, Noah and Allie essentially meet on a Ferris Wheel. Coincidence?

We all have one of these moments on the Ferris Wheel (maybe not literally) that we want to hold onto. But most of us let them go. But here, we see what happens when you don’t. Keith Urban’s vocals capture the desperation so perfectly; I don’t think anyone else in country music could have captured it better than he does.

And here, just for fun--the making of the video.