I am not sure when exactly I got the idea for the song «Summer» but it´s probably one time between the beginning and the middle of the 2000s. It was one of the songs that was going to be a part of the «1001 natt» album, the pop album in Norwegian that I was planning many years ago. When I started to instead focus on an English speaking album called «1001 nights» there were many other songs to choose from and the song was considered more of a «bonus» song.
The original title of Summer was «Syden» and the lyrics were about traveling to a warmer climate to party and drink. Ironically, it was written by someone who has never been in the warmer climate partying and drinking himself, but I am very capable of visualizing how it must be like. When I chose the song to be part of the Summer EP I started to write new and final English lyrics and the song ended up as a celebration of the summertime.
If you listen to my original instrumental demo of «Summer» that I sent to the producer it´s a little different from the final version. The synth hook is almost the same, only with a minor change in the ending of it. The verse is exactly the same but when it comes to the chorus I initially had the part that is used as the pre-chorus as my original chorus. It was actually not until the night before we were going to record the song in the studio that I came up with the new and final chorus to the song. In addition, I originally planned a rap part instead of a traditional bridge, so a new bridge part was also created. I came up with a bridge suggestion the night before recording as well and the producer worked with that suggestion and added that great bridge part that we now have. The «da,da,da» vocalizing that you can hear in the last part of the song was my plan all the way and something that I tried to put down in my instrumental demo.
A couple of funny memories from the studio:
We discussed the line «the sun is shining and 20 degrees». The vocalist was of the opinion that 20 degrees is a bit too low in the summertime and would prefer to change it to 30 degrees. I see the point and could agree to change it but we found out that singing «the sun is shining and 30 degrees» does not flow as well as 20 degrees so the original line stayed. In addition; to me, who is not a fan of extreme heat, 30 degrees is not summer, it´s almost death temperature and should be called extreme weather. So at least to the songwriter 20 degrees is definitely summer, although I know that many will disagree 🙂
«Sunburned people, mosquitos and bees». On behalf of all bees I apologize deeply. Sunburn I don´t like. Mosquitos I hate. Bees, on the other hand, have never done anything wrong. In fact, I love them, because they are the producers of a product that I am a big consumer of, honey. Therefore, I am sure that some might react to the fact that I am a little negative about them in the lyrics to this song. Well, the only reason for this is an artistic one: singing «sunburned people, mosquitos and wasps» does not flow and is not a very good sentence in a song. Even though it is the wasp that deserves the negative mention here the bee was thrown before the bus just because it´s easier to sing. I understand if the bees are offended and I hope that the Queen B will find a way to forgive me.
Summer was recorded Thursday 22th July 2021 at Norsk Lydstudio in Mjøndalen, Norway. We started the recording session at 15:15 PM and kept working until 17:15 PM.