Kurt Weill - "September Song"
"September Song" is an American standard popular song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson. It was introduced by Walter Huston in the 1938 Broadway musical production Knickerbocker Holiday. After being used in the 1950 film September Affair, the song has been recorded by numerous singers and instrumentalists. It was also used during screen credits in the British television series May to December, the name of which quotes the opening line of the song's main theme.
"September Song" is based on a metaphor comparing a year to a person's life span from birth to death. Several songs on Frank Sinatra's 1965 album September of My Years, including the title song and "It Was a Very Good Year", use the same metaphor.
The song is an older person's plea to a younger potential lover that the courting activities of younger suitors and the objects of their desire are transient and time-wasting. As an older suitor, the speaker hasn't "got time for the waiting game."
The song consists of a chorus, the section that starts, "Oh, It's a long, long time . . ." and two different verses, one describing the courting activities of a young man and one describing the disdainful reaction of the girl and the suitor's patience until she changes her mind. Singers may omit both verses, as Frank Sinatra did in his 1946 version, sing one verse, as Huston did in his, or both, as Sinatra did in his 1965 rendition on the aforementioned September of My Years album. Sinatra sang the first verse in his 1962 album Point of No Return, his last for Capitol Records.
Differences exist between the version of the song recorded in 1938 by Walter Huston and the versions heard today. Huston's version is tailored specifically to the character he's playing, Peter Stuyvesant. For example, Huston sings, "I have lost one tooth and I walk a little lame," referring to his peg leg. And later he says, "I have a little money and I have a little fame". Both of these lines, and several others, have disappeared from the song. Other changes involve the point of view of the singer — in Huston's version, the activities of the young man are described in the second person to the girl ("When you meet with a young man . . ."). Contemporary versions make the singer the young man ("When I was a young man . . ."). One difference between Huston's version and other versions is the final line: Huston sings, "These precious days I'd spend with you", whereas later singers tend to sing, "These precious days I'll spend with you".
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was a German composer, active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work The Threepenny Opera, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose. He also wrote several works for the concert hall. He became a United States citizen on August 27, 1943.
Weill's music continues to be performed both in popular and classical contexts. In Weill's lifetime, his work was most associated with the voice of his wife, Lotte Lenya, but shortly after his death "Mack the Knife" was established by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin as a jazz standard. His music has since been recorded by many performers, ranging from Nina Simone, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, The Doors, Ella Fitzgerald, David Bowie, Robbie Williams, Judy Collins, John Zorn, Dagmar Krause, Steeleye Span, The Young Gods and PJ Harvey to New York's Metropolitan Opera and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Singers as varied as Teresa Stratas, Ute Lemper, Gisela May, Anne Sofie von Otter, Max Raabe, Heinz Karl Gruber, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Marianne Faithfull have recorded entire albums of his music.
In 1985, Hal Willner produced Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill, a tribute album in which Weill's songs were interpreted by a variety of artists, including Todd Rundgren, Tom Waits, Lou Reed and Sting.
Amanda Palmer, singer-pianist of the 'Brechtian Punk Cabaret' duo The Dresden Dolls, has Kurt Weill's name on the front of her keyboard (a pun on the name of the instrument maker Kurzweil) as a tribute to the composer. In 1991, the seminal Swiss industrial band The Young Gods released their album of Kurt Weill songs, The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill. Weill has also been often cited as an influence on Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain. In 2008, Weill's songs were performed by Canadian musicians (including Sarah Slean and Mary Margaret O'Hara) in a tribute concert as part of the first annual Canwest Cabaret Festival in Toronto. In 2009 Duke Special released an EP, Huckleberry Finn, of five songs from an unfinished musical by Kurt Weill based on the novel by Mark Twain.
Kurt Weill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame
I’m giving you two of my favorite versions, Nat King Cole and Sarah Vaughan.
So with many leaves falling, I choose Kurt Weill’s “September Song”, as performed by Nat “King” Cole & Sarah Vaughan, as my look to the leaves, skies are changing, winds of change are coming , song for a, bless this space, remember your own magic, create the light you’re looking to find, Tuesday.
