Sharing a name with—but in no way inspired by— Tennessee Williams’s 1958 Southern Gothic one-act play (and subsequent 1959 film adaptation, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, and Montgomery Clift), this Top 10 hit by New Wave group The Motels also draws on the universe’s cyclical and mysterious nature to tell a story about one fateful summer, albeit through the lens of familiar coming-of-age themes like the loss of innocence.

Co-written by lead singer Martha Davis and composer Ronald Czajkowski, “Suddenly Last Summer” was the first single off of The Motels' fourth studio album, Little Robbers. Released in August 1983, the song peaked at #9 on November 19, 1983.

In a 2019 interview with Davis, journalist Linda Tuccio-Koonz strikes the nerve center of the track’s synth-y symbolism, noting:

The song, written after [Davis’s] parents had died—her mom by suicide and her dad from illness—is a reflection on those moments in life when things are changing, like when it’s a beautiful sunny day and a cold wind blows and you know the end of summer is coming.