Summertime in England

"Summertime in England"
"Cry for Home" single cover
Single by Van Morrison
A-side	"Cry for Home"
B-side	"Summertime in England" (Live)
Released	February 1983
Genre	Jazz, R&B
Length	15:39
Label	Mercury
Writer(s)	Van Morrison
Producer(s)	Van Morrison

"Summertime in England" is the longest song on Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison's 1980 album, Common One, and is approximately fifteen minutes long. Although the album on which the song appeared was not critically or commercially successful, the song would be performed by Morrison in concert for almost two and one-half decades, taking on new meaning when performed live. The song was also released as the B-side of the 1983 single "Cry for Home".

Morrison started rehearsing "Summertime in England" in November and December 1979 along with "Haunts of Ancient Peace" at club gigs in the San Francisco area. According to Mick Cox, guitarist, "we did 'Haunts' and 'Summertime in England' in 4/4 time...Van brought it right down at the end to nothing, so he's just saying, 'Can you feel the Silence?' but he's still keeping the beat, and then Pee Wee Ellis takes his mouthpiece off and Mark Isham takes his mouthpiece off, and they're both making quiet percussive noises in time to the rhythm." Cox felt like the rehearsal performances were "far better than the final recordings." The song on the album was recorded at Super Bear Studios in the French Alps in February 1980 and according to Mick Cox the second take was the one used on the album. The spoken section is in 3/4 time that begins with John Allair's church organ fugue.

Morrison originally wrote the song as a poem about William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge making a literary trip to the Lake District in England where they worked together on the poems that were to become their landmark joint venture, Lyrical Ballads. Morrison has been quoted as saying, "['Summertime in England'] was actually part of a poem I was writing, and the poem and the song sorta merged... I'd read several articles about this particular group of poets who were writing about this particular thing, which I couldn't find in the framework I was in."