September Song... More Than This

I could feel at the time

There was no way of knowing

Fallen leaves in the night

Who can say where they're blowing?

As free as the wind

Hopefully learning

Why the sea on the tide

Has no way of turning?

More than this, you know there is nothing

More than this, tell me one thing

More than this, there is nothing

It was fun for a while

There was no way of knowing

Like a dream in the night

Who can say where we're going?

No care in the world

Maybe I'm learning

Why the sea on the tide

Has no way of turning?

More than this, you know there is nothing

More than this, tell me one thing

More than this, now there is nothing

More than this, nothing

More than this

More than this, nothing

Bryan Ferry

1982

This goes out to regular reader- Rico

September Song...Goodbye My Friend

Oh we never know where life will take us

I know it's just a ride on the wheel

& we never know when death will shake us

& we wonder how it will feel

So goodbye my friend

I know I'll never see you again

But the time together through all the years

Will take away these tears

It's okay now

Goodbye my friend

I've seen a lot things that make me crazy

& I guess I held on to you

We could've run away & left, well maybe

But it wasn't time & we both knew

So goodbye my friend

I know I'll never see you again

But the love you gave me through all the years

Will take away these tears

I'm okay now

Goodbye my friend

Life's so fragile & love is so pure

We can't hold on, but we try

We watch how quickly it disappears

& we never know why

But I'm okay now

Goodbye my friend

You can go now

Goodbye my friend

Karla Bonoff

1989

September Song... The Dog Song

I'm just a walking my dog

Singing my song

Strolling along

Yeah it's just me & my dog

Catching some sun

We can't go wrong

My life was lonely & blue

I was sad as a sailor

I was an angry one too

Then there was you

Appeared, when I was entangled

with youth, & fear, & nerves

Vermouth & beer

Were gettin' me mangled up

But then I looked in your eyes

& I was no more a failure

You looked so wacky & wise

& I said, lord I'm happy

'cause I'm just a walking my dog

Singing my song

Strolling along

It's just me & my dog

Catchin' some sun

We can't go wrong

Because I don't care about your hating & your doubt

& I don't care what the politicians spout

If you wanna companion

Well just go right to the pound

& find yourself a hound

& make that doggie proud

Because that's what it's all about

My life was tragic & sad

Yeah I was the archetypal loser
I was a pageant gone bad

Then there was you on time

& wagging your tail

In the cutest mime

& you was in jail

I said woof, be mine

& you gave a wail

& then I was no longer alone

& I was no more a boozer

We'll make the happiest home

& I said lord, I'm happy

Because I'm just a walking my dog

Singing my song

Strolling along

It's just me & my dog

Catchin' some sun

We can't go wrong

Because I don't care about your hating & your doubt

& I don't care what the politicians spout

If you need a companion

Well just go right to the pound

& find yourself a hound

& make that doggie proud

Beause that's what it's all about

That's what it's all about

That's what it's all abow-wow-wow-wout

That's what it's all about

Nelly McKay
2004

September Song... What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?

What are you doing the rest of your life?

North & South & East & West of your life?

I have only one request of your life

That you spend it all with me.

All the seasons & the times of your days.

All the nickels & the dimes of your days.

Let the reasons & the rhymes of your days.

All begin & end with me.

I want to see your face,

In every kind of light,

In fields of gold &

Forests of the night;

& when you stand before

The candles on a cake.
Oh let me be the one to hear

The silent wish you make.

Those tomorrows waiting deep in your eyes

In the world of love you keep in your eyes,

I'll awaken what's asleep in your eyes,

It may take a kiss or 2..

Through all of my life..

Summer, Winter, Spring & Fall of my life,

All I ever will recall of my life

Is all of my life with you.

Legrand/Bergman/Bergman

1969

September Song... September Morn

Stay for just a while

Stay, & let me look at you

It's been so long, I hardly knew you

Standing in the door

Stay with me a while

I only want to talk to you

We've traveled halfway 'round the world

To find ourselves again

September morn

We danced until the night became a brand new day

2 lovers playing scenes from some romantic play

September morning still can make me feel that way

Look at what you've done

Why, you've become a grown-up

I still can hear you cryin'

In the corner of your room

& look how far we've come

So far from where we used to be

But not so far that we've forgotten

How it was before

September morn

Do you remember how we danced that night away

2 lovers playing scenes from some romantic play

September morning still can make me feel that way

Diamond

1979

September Songs... Mr. Rockerfeller

Mr. Rockefeller, how are you?

Mr. Rockefeller, having fun?

Mr. Rockefeller I could use a few

if you'd like to send a few down my way.

Mr. Rockefeller, I get my magazines,

I see you on the TV too, yeah.

Mr. Rockefeller, they tell me, they tell me all about it,

but they don't tell me how are you.

Sometimes I think I know you,

sometimes I think I don't.

Sometimes I think we'll make it,

sometimes I think we won't.

Waiting on the wire,

& I'm ragged to the bone.

Mr. Rockefeller won't you

please pick up the phone?

The reason I'm calling is to say

I'm not feeling so good.

I'm all broken down.

My family is nervous & my thoughts are blue.

But I wanna know, I gotta know,

I'm askin' everybody, how are you?

Please, won't you answer me?

Won't you take the time?

The next call's got to be collect,

'cause this is my last dime.

Waiting on the wire,

& I'm ragged to the bone.

Mr. Rockefeller, please pick up the phone!

Mr. Rockefeller, how are you?

Mr. Rockefeller, having fun?

Mr. Rockefeller, how are you?

Mr. Rockefeller, having fun?

Mr. Rockefeller, please, Mr. Rockefeller.

Mr. Rockefeller!

Mr. Rockefeller, please, Mr. Rockefeller.

Mr. Rockefeller!

Mr. Rockefeller, wouldn't it be nice?

Mr. Rockefeller . . .

Bette Midler/Jerry Blatt

1976

I am feeling as if a giant boot is coming down on my head. The money is too tight to mention. I thought of this song, a favorite for 35 years.

September Songs... Loving You Has Made Me Bananas

YOUR RED SCARF MATCHES YOUR EYES,

YOU CLOSED YOUR COVER BEFORE STRIKING,

FATHER HAD THE SHIPFITTER BLUES,

LOVING YOU HAS MADE ME BANANAS,

YOU BURNT YOUR FINGER THAT EVENING.

WHILE MY BACK WAS TURNED,

I ASKED THE WAITER FOR IODINE,

BUT I DINED ALL ALONE.

YOUR RED SCARF MATCHES YOUR EYES,

YOU CLOSED YOUR COVER BEFORE STRIKING,

FATHER HAD THE SHIPFITTER BLUES,

LOVING YOU HAS MADE ME BANANAS.

Guy Marks

1965

This ditty had radio play in 1965. I was 11 years old & I was bananas for it. At one point I consider it for auditions because it is so concise. I could never find the sheet music, possibly a good thing.

September Songs #1... September Song

But it’s a long, long while from May to December,

& the days grow short when you reach September.

The autumn weather turns the leaves to flame,

& I haven’t got the time for the waiting game.

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few;

September, November. . .

& these few precious days I’ll spend with you,

These precious days I’ll spend with you.

Maxwell Anderson

 1938

Maxwell Anderson was a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, author, poet, reporter, & lyricist. He wrote the Broadway musicals Knickerbocker Holiday & Lost in the Stars, both with scores by Kurt Weill; the plays The Bad Seed & Key Largo & the screen adaptations of Death Takes a Holiday & All Quiet On The Western Front.

Knickerbocker Holiday, which starred Walter Huston, John Huston’s father, Angelica’s grandfather, created a stir as both a romantic musical comedy & a thinly veiled allegory equating FDR’s New Deal with fascism. Anderson was a pacifist & an individualist anarchist. He saw the New Deal as another example of the concentration of political power which had given rise to both Nazism & Stalinism.

The most memorable about this creaky musical was September Song, which was sung Huston. Huston’s voice had such pathos & poignant prudence that his rendition became one of American musical theater’s legendary moments.

Much of the credit goes to the music. Kurt Weill, the German composer of the great TheThreepenny Opera, Happy End, The Rise & Fall of the City of Mahagonny, all with Bertolt Brecht’s lyrics, & Lady in the Dark, with Ira Gershwin lyrics, One Touch of Venus, with Ogden Nash doing lyrics, had emigrated to the USA 3 years earlier to escape the Nazis.

Weill’s score is a cheeky mix of darting drollery & smart, sanguine sentimentality. Ironically, producer Jean Dalrymple wrote that she was “a little disappointed in the score because it was so American, & nothing like The Threepenny Opera which I had gotten used to & loved. I felt shocked that he Americanized himself so quickly.”

Here, to start my September songs is perhaps my personal favorite, performed by the great Jimmy Durante in 1955.

Once in the 1980s, I snuck a look at my audition card for a musical. The director, choreographer & musical dirctor & stepped out of the theatre & I just took a peek. The card had 5 stars & the note: “ Terrific performer- a young Jimmy Durante”. I could not have not more pleased with a comparison.

In 1963, after decades of novelty & comedy songs on Broadway, films, & TV, Durante was invited to record a “serious” album of standards. He was uncertain about the project, but the resulting album, September Song, was in every way a success. It was Durante’s only album to enter the Top 40, & the title track made Billboard’s Top Pop 100. Mixing Durante’s unique voice with lush strings & a vocal chorus, September Song is a off-kilter masterpiece full of peerless performances. I find Durante to be an underestimated talent even if he was a technically deficent vocalist, but he aced this project with aplomb & created a piece of work very different from, but just as charming as, the comedy songs that had made him a star.