What the Hell is a Purple Summer Anyway?

I was a huge fan of the musical Spring Awakening, but I always thought the show should have ended before the closing song "The Song of Purple Summer." I mean, what is a purple summer? Steven Sater, Spring Awakening's book writer and lyricist, addresses this and other lyrics in his new book A Purple Summer: Notes on the Lyrics of Spring Awakening.

The idea for the book came from e-mails Sater was writing to translators on how to convey the meaning of the lyrics in other languages. The songs are presented in chronological order, with explications following Sater's lyrics for each. At only 87 pages, it's a quick read (I read the whole thing on a subway ride). There are plenty of interesting anecdotes, especially in the conversations with translators (for the Seoul production, the Korean translator had to choose between "joy," "garbage," and "drug" to convey the meaning of "junk" in "My Junk"). However, with only a couple of pages devoted to each song, Sater could have gone deeper into the explanations. I would have also enjoyed more of the backstory of writing the musical with Duncan Sheik.

As to the question of what is a purple summer, here is what Sater has to say:
"For me, 'purple summer' represents the time of maturation--a time when the fields will yield crops, and the horses bear foals again. It is the time when the painful spring of adolescence reaches the maturity of summer."

Click here to read an excerpt from the book.