September Mourn

Living in the northeast US, I am always amazed by how the seasons show up right on schedule. Sure enough, leaving my house on this first September Morn of 2009, I felt a distinct fall-like crispness and slight chill in the air that was nowhere to be found only two days earlier.

Neil Diamond found much significance in the dawn of the ninth month as well. His classic "September Morn" chronicles a relationship that is about to begin "a brand new day," and not necessarily a better one.

Look at what you've done
Why, you've become a grown-up girl
I still can hear you cryin'
In the corner of your room
And 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
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel this way


Another American Master of Song who understood that September is much more than a month is the Chairman of the Board, Francis Albert Sinatra.

Frank has used September in service of his world-weary brand of romanticism on several occasions, notably on this duet of "September Song" with B-B-B-Bing Crosby:


One of Sinatra's biggest-selling albums was 1965's September of My Years, which featured the autumnal "It Was a Very Good Year." Sinatra of course, was a master interpreter, but even Ol' Blue Eyes couldn't hold a candle to this definitive version by the Transformed Man himself, William Shatner, seen here on the Mike Douglas Show in the early 1970s. How he gets through this without withering Harvey Korman-like into laughter is one of life's eternal mysteries.

A big September shoutout to George Feinn for inspiring this historic post. TCB.