Songfacts®:

• Bishop Swithin of Winchester, the counsellor of the Wessex kings Egbert and Aethelwulf died in 862. He was buried, according to his wishes, in a common grave outside his Winchester church. When a new cathedral was built at Winchester, it was planned that he would be reburied within the cathedral on 15th July 971. However the reburial was delayed by prolonged heavy rain and it was thought that Saint Swithin himself bought this retribution because he always hated pomp. Hence the belief that if it rains on 15th July, Saint Swithin's Day, it will continue to rain for 40 days.
  
  In time St. Swithin's Day came to be British slang for the day that never comes. English Singer-songwriter Billy Bragg released this tune titled after the saint's feast day on his second album Brewing Up With Billy Bragg. His song is a sad one as it appears the narrator and his lover never properly communicated their feelings to each other, so unfortunately it resulted in a love that never comes.
• British author David Nicholls' best selling romantic novel One Day, which was made into a feature film in 2011, tells the story of two people who meet every St Swithin's Day over a period of twenty years. Nicholls acknowledges that the concluding lines of this song inspired the story:
  
  The Polaroids that hold us together
  Will surely fade away
  Like the love that we spoke of forever
  On St Swithin's Day