The Motels: Suddenly Last Summer

Remarks:

This song went to #9 on the US pop chart in 1983. The video, beloved by MTV, so reminds me of being stuck in a nowhere place with everyone in your business telling you how to live your life. It helps that, unlike “Leave It to Beaver”, it was not filmed on a Hollywood backlot with good road repair. The Wikipedia, though, says it is about “cyclical loss and new beginnings” –  loss of virginity in the video, the loss of singer Martha Davis’s parents in real life. As she told Beyond Race magazine:

“I believe the song to be about irrevocable change, the loss of innocence, the melancholy associated with not being able to go home again. When I was still living in Berkeley, in my early 20s, I remember sitting in the back yard of the little house I bought after my parents died. It was the end of summer. From down the street, I heard the sound of the ice cream truck with its haunting little song. As I lay there, the first cold wind of autumn started to blow and I knew I would not see the truck again that year, and that summer was over. That incident resonated with me and I think the bells from that truck became the concept for repeating melodic line that runs through ‘Suddenly.'”

Despite its title it has nothing to do with the Tennessee Williams play of the same name.

The book in the video: “Building Passion” (1983) by Jane Bierce, a Harlequin romance novel.

See also:

• songs: the 1980s
• MTV
• That ice cream truck song
• Dorrough: Ice Cream Paint Job

Lyrics:

It happened one summer
It happened one time
It happened forever
For a short time
A place for a moment
An end to a dream
Forever I loved you
Forever it seemed

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

Sometimes I never leave
But sometimes I would
Sometimes I stay too long
Sometimes I would
Sometimes it frightens me
Sometimes it would
Sometimes I’m all alone
And wish that I could

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

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

And then suddenly
Last summer
Until suddenly
Last summer

Source: AZ Lyrics, Songfacts, Wikipedia.