We Lost The Summer
Updated: 2 days ago
⋆ Genre: Dancehall
⋆ Producing Credits: Slow Rabbit
⋆ Writing/Composing Credits: Slow Rabbit, Pdogg, Charlotte Grace Victoria Lee, LIL 27 CLUB, Charlotte Aitchison (Charli XCX), Kyle Bladt Knudsen, Colton Ward
ABOUT/MEANING: “We Lost the Summer” directly captures the experience of young people living through the COVID-19 pandemic, when everyday life was abruptly interrupted by isolation and uncertainty. Going to school, seeing friends, spending time outside and sharing ordinary days together become distant memories, leaving the boys longing not for something extraordinary, but for the everyday experiences that once seemed guaranteed.
The “summer” they have lost consequently represents more than a season. It embodies a period of youth they expected to spend making memories and sharing experiences, only for life to become suspended while time continued moving forward. Seasons still change and the boys continue growing older, creating a particular kind of loss: another summer may eventually arrive, but the specific days and experiences that passed during this one cannot simply be returned to them.
Within minisode1: Blue Hour, “We Lost the Summer” grounds the album’s broader feelings of distance and transition in the reality of the period in which it was created. Where “Blue Hour” captures the beauty and melancholy of an in-between moment, “We Lost the Summer” reveals what it can feel like to become trapped within one - waiting for familiar life to return while knowing that the time being lost cannot be recovered.
TRANSLATION NOTE: The song's Korean title, 날씨를 잃어버렸어 (nalssireul ireobeoryeosseo), more literally means “We Lost the Weather.” While the English title focuses on the “summer” that has been taken away, the Korean title reflects the song's broader image of time and seasons becoming disrupted. The calendar continues moving forward, but their emotional clock remains “stuck in winter,” as though the natural progression of everyday life has stopped.
LYRICS - ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Oh oh oh oh oh
We lost the summer
Oh oh oh oh oh
The noisy heat of our running soccer shoes (with you)
Earphones that we shared in secret (now just me)
The popular songs, classroom concerts (but now)
We lost the sunset, now don’t know what to do
The first day on my calendar, then countless first days after
Left behind in the evening of an endless March 1st
CONTEXT/EXPLANATION: March traditionally marks the beginning of the new school year in South Korea. In 2020, however, the spread of COVID-19 forced schools to postpone their reopening, with the start of the school year repeatedly delayed. The “endless March 1st” therefore captures the strange sense of being suspended at what should have been a new beginning: the calendar continued moving forward, but ordinary school life did not. For Korean listeners, the specific date also carries an additional cultural resonance. March 1 is Samiljeol (삼일절), the national holiday commemorating the March First Independence Movement of 1919. This association creates an interesting parallel: a date strongly connected with independence and freedom appears within a song about a period defined by restriction, isolation and the inability to move forward.
My White Day’s already wasted
CONTEXT/EXPLANATION: White Day, celebrated on March 14 in South Korea and several other East Asian countries, follows Valentine's Day and traditionally involves giving reciprocal gifts to someone who gave you a Valentine's gift. Saying that his White Day has already been “wasted” adds another ordinary social experience to the moments lost as everyday life suddenly comes to a halt.
Keep lovesick, no vaccine
Our clock lost the weather, stuck in winter
Cause we lost the summer
When we lost each other
Give me back my season
Oh, it’s all gone
An eternal winter
Now I just miss ya
Give me back 'us'
Oh, it’s all gone
We lost the summer
One day and two, a week, a month, a year
I'm walking alone, awkwardly walking in place
We lost the summer
A nightmarish week, then a month, a year
I want to see you again
Our shining summer
(Long gone)
We lost the summer
The door of our favorite cafe is tightly locked (and how)
Hiding my sighs behind this suffocating mask (remaining here)
I hate my face drained of expression (you know)
You were my sunset, I wanna make it work
The first day on my calendar, then countless first days after
Left behind in the evening of an endless March 1st
Again, the recurring mornings of an eternal vacation
Our clock lost the weather
Broken in the winter
Cause we lost the summer
When we lost each other
Give me back my season
Oh, it’s all gone
An eternal winter
Now I just miss ya
Give me back 'us'
Oh, it’s all gone
We lost the summer
Hot summertime (We)
CONNECTION: The image of a lost summer creates a striking contrast with “Our Summer,” where being with “you” transforms even an ordinary grey world into an endless emotional summer. Here, separation reverses that image: summer has disappeared precisely because “we lost each other,” leaving the boys emotionally “stuck in winter.” What once represented warmth created through connection now becomes something they can only remember and long to recover.
The days we wished for (just ordinary)
Me in summer (You in summer)
Can’t we go back?
Hot summer time (summer time)
Don’t disappear (I’m running to you now)
Searching to find you (don’t forget us)
We go on
We lost the summer
When we lost each other
Give me back my season
Oh, it’s all gone
An eternal winter
Now I just miss ya
Give me back 'us'
Oh, it’s all gone
We lost the summer
One day and two, a week, a month, a year
I'm walking alone, awkwardly walking in place
We lost the summer
A nightmarish week, then a month, a year
I want to see you again
Our shining summer
(Long gone)
We lost the summer
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