Summer

Album: Motion (2014)
Charted: 1 7
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Songfacts®:

  • The first single from Calvin Harris' fourth album finds Harris singing about the euphoria of a summertime romance. The exuberant club-stomper marked the Scottish DJ's first time on the microphone since 18 Months' second single, "Feel So Close." The song was played for the first time on UK's Capital Radio on March 14, 2014.
  • The song's Emil Nava directed music video is set in a desert where a drag race takes place, with action hero actor Jason Statham taking on Harris. The day at the races is followed by a glitzy house party.
  • The song was Calvin Harris' fourth UK #1 single as a lead artist following "I'm Not Alone," "Sweet Nothing" and "Under Control." The Scottish dance producer has also featured on UK chart-toppers by Dizzee Rascal ("Dance Wiv Me") and Rihanna ("We Found Love").
  • This was the second song titled "Summer" to reach the Top 10 of the Hot 100. The previous one by the funk-rock band War peaked at #7 in 1976.
  • Structurally, this song has an interesting quirk: there are no lyrics in the chorus. After Harris sings the first verse, the beat picks up but there are no vocals to go along with it, as the EDM groove provides the necessary lift on its own. This pattern is repeated again, followed by a bridge and a final chorus, giving the song a standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure, just with a chorus that could be deemed an instrumental break.
  • Seems Calvin Harris does not have much regard for his singing voice. He told Zane Lowe on Beats 1: "'Summer' was me coughing for about a day and then recording the vocal. 'Cause there's only so far you can go with a voice like mine, you know there's a limited range."

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