None of our marvelous months is featured in more songs than the 30 days of September, although April makes a strong song showing, too, with the musical promise of a new spring.
But just about everybody ought to be able to relate to the mood (admittedly often decidedly melancholic) and/or music of at least one of these September Seven:
7. Natalie Imbruglia’s “Come September” (2002): Amid all the painful images, her song from the album “White Lilies Island” offers one ray of hope:
“Everything wrong
Gonna be all right
Come September.”
6. Neil Diamond’s “September Morn” (1979): Neil offers more heartache, more regret and more memories but also some nice images.
5. Carole King’s “It Might As Well Rain Until September” (1962): A longtime hit songwriter, King the singer first hit the Top 40 with this pop piece of melancholy, which proved to be a far bigger hit in the United Kingdom. It would take her nine years to make it back on the Top 40 charts here, arriving big time with a two-sided monster hit, “It’s Too Late” and “I Feel the Earth Move.”
4. The Tempos’ “See You in September” (1959): Here’s your classic “summer of heartbreak” love song – the original version that, in keeping with the song’s mood, is slower-paced than the Happenings’ up-tempo 1966 remake.
3. Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” (1978): By a long shot, the legendary R&B group offers the most upbeat song of the bunch, and you can’t go wrong when a song opens with a strong horn section.
Tough choice
It’s a toss-up for the top spot between two songs that express universal feelings of loss (in this instance, time vs. love). As a certified softie, I opted for lost love:
2. Frank Sinatra’s “September Song” (1965): This pop standard was first introduced on Broadway in 1938 by Walter Huston in the short-lived “Knickerbocker Holiday,” a “fascism allegory” by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson. Sinatra’s is one of many great versions of this song, which includes one of my all-time favorite musical couplets:
“When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame,
one hasn’t got time for the waiting game.”
1. Dinah Washington’s “September in the Rain” (1961): The incomparable Queen of the Blues succinctly sums up the end of a love affair with a vivid parallel image:
“The sun went out just like a dying ember
That September in the rain.”
Did I miss any worthy nominees? Tell me below.