| "Konchitsya leto" | |
|---|---|
| Song byKino | |
| from the albumBlack Album | |
| Language | Russian |
| English title | Summer will end |
| Written | 1990 |
| Released | 1990 |
| Recorded | 1990 |
| Genre | |
| Length | 5:56 |
| Label | Metadigital |
| Songwriter(s) | Viktor Tsoi |
| Music video | |
| "Лето" onYouTube | |
"Konchitsya leto" (Russian: Кончится лето,lit. 'Summer is ending/Summer will end'), also referred to as "Leto" (Russian: Лето,lit. 'Summer') or "Ya zhdu otveta" (Russian: Я жду ответа,lit. 'I'm waiting for an answer') is a song by the Soviet rock groupKino from theBlack Album, written in the spring of 1990 and released after the death of frontmanViktor Tsoi. The song was recorded at a port studio at adacha in Plieņciems, Latvia, where Tsoi went to relax after a concert atLuzhniki Stadium.
The song was written, along with others that later made it into the "Black Album", in the spring of 1990 in Natalia Razlogova's apartment in theMoscow district ofBelyayevo, where Viktor and Natalia lived at the time. The recording was made on a household tape recorder with anacoustic guitar. Part of this recording with an incomplete first verse was subsequently published in 2018.[1][2]
The recording for the future album was done in the summer of 1990 at theYamaha MT-44 studio in the village of Plienciems nearJūrmala, in modern dayLatvia. In Viktor's notebook, there is a draft of the track list, in which the song is called "Waiting for an Answer". After Tsoi's death, the recording was revised and released on the "Black Album" in January 1991.[1][2][3]
A rough version of the song's mix was recorded prior in a sample cassette, and it was later released in 2002 as part of the "Poslednie zapisi" compilation (or "The Last Recordings").[4]
According to E. I. Shadzhanova, the song "Summer Will End" ("Waiting for an Answer"), like all the songs of the "Black Album", is permeated with the expectation and premonition ofdeath. In this song, as Shadzhanova notes, through the fact that movement is replaced bystatics, thesemantics of the concept of "dao" is realized and developed. The fact that external stimuli for action does not work, and there are no internal ones (there is no point in moving forward and there is no way to go back), and, according to Shadzhanova, lies the first significant moment for interpreting the concept of "dao".[5]
The hero of the song, according to Shadzhanova, feels that he has reached a dead end or has finished his journey, having lost his inner incentive. In the last lines of the chorus ("... I'm waiting for an answer. / There are no more hopes. / Summer will soon end. / This..."),[a] as Shadzhanova writes, the feeling of approaching death is concentrated. He further noted that the fact that Tsoidied on the road that same summer (August 15, 1990) caused the song to become more symbolic, as that summer actually became his last.[5]
The very space in which the hero of the song exists, according to Shadzhanova, closes around him, enclosing the latter in the center of a closed cycle ("... and so year after year goes by", "for the hundredth time...").[b] Because of this feeling, the protagonist again feels hopeless and uncertain ("maybe there will be at least a day..."),[c] from which, it would seem, he has freed himself. Shadzhanova suggests that it is precisely this change that is connected with the feeling of approaching death that haunted Tsoi ("life will pass").[d][5]
According to N. K. Nezhdanova, the song "Summer Will End" ("Waiting for an Answer") is permeated withirony. The very existence in peace is described in the song ironically: "We eat for a day, and drink for three / And, in general, we live happily."[e] The phrase "Rain outside the window"[f] in the song speaks of the existence of another world, where well-being is immoral. In the song, Viktor Tsoi's protagonist is closer to rain, it is his weather.[6]
The final credits ofKirill Serebrennikov's film "Leto" about the young Viktor Tsoi and theLeningradunderground rock culture of the early 1980s are accompanied by the song Konchitsya leto.[7][8]
The song gave the title to the Russian-Kazakh film "Summer is Ending" (2023). The Kino TV channel reviewed the film, in which Ekaterina Zagvozdkina noted: "The film itself begins with a concert of Viktor Tsoi in the city ofAlmaty, and ends the day after his death, on August 15, 1990. This time is the Tsoi era, or rather, its very end, but the film tells a different story. One of the heroes, the leader of the yard punks, is a copy of Tsoi".[9]