Songfacts®:

• This nostalgic song finds Thomas Rhett singing of a high school romance that was doomed to end. The relationship between the two seniors fizzled out once summer turned to fall and they headed to different schools.
• Rhett wrote the song on an October retreat in Montana with frequent collaborators Ashley Gorley, Jesse Frasure, Sean Douglas and his father Rhett Akins. While in the living room, Rhett noticed the colorful leaves that signaled the transition from summer to fall. When someone said, "I wish summer would slow down," the country star spotted an idea for a song.
  
  "We kind of just related it to an emotion that I think a lot of us have been through of just getting out of high school or getting out of college, dating somebody and knowing you've got three months to maybe solidify this relationship or it's not going to work," Rhett told The Boot, calling back his own all-too-short teenage summer romance. "I was dating a girl and she went to a different college than me. Right when school started, it was like, 'We're going different ways.'"
  
  Frasure also co-produced the track with Dann Huff.
• Rhett first shared "Slow Down Summer" in spring 2020 when he performed an acoustic version during a livestream. He recorded the song for his sixth studio album, Where We Started, releasing it as its lead single on November 5, 2021.
• The song features a huge, 14-piece string section arranged by Kristin Wilkinson. The other musicians are:
  
  Acoustic guitar: Ilya Toshinskiy
  Electric guitar: Derek Wells and Dann Huff
  Steel guitar: Paul Franklin
  Bass guitar: Jimmy Lee Sloas
  Sitar: Dann Huff
  Mandolin: Ilya Toshinskiy & Dann Huff
  Drums: Chris Kimmerer
  Piano: Charlie Judge
  Backing vocals: Thomas Rhett, Josh Reedy and Stevie Frasure