Songfacts®:

• One of the most easygoing Judas Priest songs, "Last Rose Of Summer" is a love song set to the cycles of nature. After giving the last rose to his love, frontman Rob Halford sings, "Do not despair, mother nature simply rests."
  
  In a Songfacts interview with Halford, he explained: "The title, 'Last Rose of Summer,' it's just got a lot of attitude about it as far as making you think. If you say to somebody, 'the last rose of summer,' that's not only the changing of the seasons, but it could also be the changing of a relationship. It could be the completion of something. It's just got a multi-faceted opportunity, and I like it.
  
  It's also sweet because it talks about nature: 'Mother Nature simply rests' and all this kind of thing. I've always felt that song is very attractive because there haven't been that many lyrics that talk about Mother Nature."
• This was written by Rob Halford and Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton, who played a Fender Rhodes piano on the track.
• Judas Priest had yet to develop their leather look and were still refining their twin-guitar sound (Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing) when this song was released on their third album, Sin After Sin. The only single from that album was a cover of the Joan Baez song "Diamonds & Rust."