'Summer of Love' song lyrics by U2

Summer of Love,” a standout track from U2’s Songs of Experience, encapsulates the longing for connection and the yearning for solace amid societal turmoil. The song’s lyrics evoke a sense of nostalgia, as Bono seeming reflects on the fleeting nature of love and the idealism of summer. 

However, Bono's lyrics often have dual meaning. 

The song's other meaning is inspired by the resilience and defiance symbolized by a gardener in war-torn Aleppo. The gardener’s act of nurturing flowers amidst devastation becomes a metaphor for hope and resistance against destruction. 

The lyrics, such as “like flowers growing in a bomb crater,” directly evoke this imagery, blending themes of nature’s perseverance and human dignity. The song situates Aleppo’s tragedy as both specific and universal, emphasizing the transformative power of beauty and life in the face of violence.

The reference to the “West Coast” is not about California but rather western Syria, positioning the song geographically and politically within the context of the Syrian Civil War. U2 contrasts the coldness of winter—symbolic of war, death, and displacement—with the warmth of summer, representing peace, safety, and renewal. The refrain, “For a summer of love,” becomes a yearning for rebirth and stability in a region marked by destruction. 

It connects to U2's broader humanitarian themes, urging solidarity and remembrance of those caught in conflict.

U2's Summer of Love song lyrics by U2 from Songs of Experience

The winter
Doesn't want you
It haunts you
Summer serenadings
A long way
From this frozen place
Your face
Our teacher
Our preacher
It's nature
And like flowers growing in a bomb crater
From nothing
A rose
It grows

I've been thinking about the West Coast
Not the one that everyone knows
I'm sick of living in the shadows
We have one more chance before the light goes
For a summer of love
A summer of love

We're freezing
We're leaving
Believing
That all we need is to head over somewhere
In a summer
To come
So we run

I've been thinking about the West Coast
Not the one that everyone knows
I'm sick of living in the shadows
We have one more chance before the light goes
For a summer of love
A summer of love

Oh and when all is lost
When all is lost we find out what remains
Oh the same oceans crossed
The suns pleasure
The sun it's pink

I've been thinking about the West Coast
Not the one that everyone knows
In the rubble of Aleppo
Flowers blooming in the shadows
For a summer of love
A summer of love

-

Bono’s lyrics situate the gardener’s story within a broader meditation on survival, hope, and the human capacity for resistance. The line “From nothing, a rose, it grows” distills the paradox of beauty emerging from desolation, turning an act as simple as tending a garden into a profound symbol of defiance and renewal. This motif underscores the resilience found in seemingly small, yet deeply meaningful, acts of preservation amidst chaos.

The song’s framing of Aleppo aligns with U2’s broader ethos of activism, using personal and vivid imagery to spotlight global crises. By drawing on the gardener’s story, Bono connects a single human act to the larger narrative of Syria’s suffering, emphasizing the power of individual resolve in the face of systemic destruction. This narrative approach allows the song to bridge the intimate and the universal, urging listeners to find meaning in both personal and collective struggles.

Through its interplay of natural cycles and human-caused devastation, “Summer of Love” transcends its specific context to speak to the indomitable spirit of those enduring conflict. The juxtaposition of life and death, of summer’s renewal against winter’s desolation, frames the pursuit of hope as both fragile and heroic, making the song a poignant reflection on humanity’s capacity to endure and rebuild.

Check out some other lyrics by  Bono for the Songs of Experience album:

• The Little Things that give you away
• Red Flag Day
• The Showman (Much More Better)

Leave a Comment