Some songs start with a melody. Some with a lyric. For Summer Storm, it all started with a painting.
Recently, I came across Jim Musil’s artwork called Summer Storm — a sweeping prairie scene with dark clouds rolling in and that electric, charged feeling you get right before the sky opens up. I couldn’t stop looking at it. The mood of it stuck with me — wide open, a little wild, that quiet moment before everything changes.
I grabbed my mandolin, started humming a melody, and the first words that came out were:
"The clouds roll in with a heavy sigh, a prairie stretch where the wild winds fly..."
From there, the song almost wrote itself. I wanted to capture the sound and feel of that storm — the wind, the lightning, the way the land holds its breath.
I wrote the melody and the chords, keeping it simple but driving — something with space for the story to breathe. To get the right feel, I hired a guitarist who could lay down that steady, rootsy acoustic track. It had to feel grounded, like standing out in the open, watching the clouds gather.
For the vocals, I turned to a friend and colleague of mine — he’s got that real country twang, the kind of voice that sounds like it belongs on a song about storms rolling across the plains. He nailed it.
Finally, I mixed everything down in Audacity — nothing fancy, just keeping it raw and honest. I didn’t want to over-polish it. The whole point was to keep that wild, open-sky feeling alive in the track.
A few favorite lines from the song that still give me chills:
"Your lightning dances on the plain, I’m caught up in your wild refrain…”
and from the bridge:
"The wind wraps round like a lover’s arm, a fleeting kiss full of reckless charm..."
Summer Storm is free to stream and download right now. You can listen here: https://tinyurl.com/MusilsSummerStorm
It’s a small musical tribute to Jim Musil’s painting — and to that feeling of standing out on the prairie, watching the storm roll in, knowing everything might be different once it passes.
Hope you enjoy it — and as always, thanks for listening.
— Adam Sweet