Well, right here in the heart of the Northern Hemisphere, as October heads warily towards November, it is clear that we are entering autumn (fall). The temperatures here in southern England may still, on occasion, be a little unseasonably high for the time of year - but there is an inevitable shift towards chilly and damp...
So there you go, and Englishman talking about the weather... fancy that!
Here are ten autumnal tunes guaranteed to help reduce that seasonal chill and cheer you up.
1. Donna Summer: Autumn Changes
Four Seasons Of Love (1976) was Donna Summer's fourth album, and third concept album, and was produced by the legendary Giorgio Moroder, with Pete Bellotte. It tells the story of a love affair by relating it to the four seasons. The songs Spring Affair and Summer Fever make up side one and are upbeat disco tunes, while Autumn Changes and Winter Melody (plus a reprise of Spring), are on side two, and are slower tempo-ed songs (but still with plenty of funk).
Donna Summer: Autumn Changes (Audio only)
2. Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald: Autumn In New York
Autumn In New York is a jazz standard written in 1934 by Vernon Duke (who was legally known as Vladimir Dukelsky until 1955) whilst he was summering in Connecticut. The song was said to be about him pining for his Manhattan home. It was first sung by J. Harold Murray in the Broadway musical Thumbs Up! in December 1934. It has been covered by a number of well known artists, including, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Chet Baker, Sarah Vaughan and Lena Horne. It seems like Duke wrote the song mostly for his own benefit, with an unwieldy first verse that most singers have chosen to ignore in their interpretations. Giving it some big band orchestration gave it a boost in the early 1940s, before Sinatra's 1947 version exploded it into the big time. Louis and Ella's version came in 1957.
Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald: Autumn In New York (Audio only - ideal for chilly nights by the fireside)
3. Guns n Roses: November Rain
A first 16-minute version of November Rain was first recorded in 1986, prior to the Appetite For Destruction sessions. Axl Rose said that Duff McKagen and Slash were initially opposed to these more symphonic ballad type songs, and wanted to continue with the more direct rock approach. At 8 minutes 57 seconds, it is still only the third longest Guns n Roses song, behind two others from the Use Your Illusion set of albums - Coma and Estranged. The strings were orchestrated by Rose and the end results were compared (generally positively) to some of the more dramatic works by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
Guns n Roses: November Rain (Official music video - all 9 dramatic minutes)
4. Earth, Wind & Fire: September
I know that autumn feelings are seeming to start later and later each year, but meteorologically it begins in September. This September came out in 1978, reaching number 3 in the UK and 8 in the US. Songwriter Allee Willis did not like the 'ba-dee-ya' lyric that singer Maurice White was using, thinking it to be gibberish. He told White - "What the f*** does ba-dee-ya mean?" with White apparently retorting, "Who the f*** cares?" That is when Willis says he learnt his biggest lesson about songwriting - "never let the lyric get in the way of the groove." The Library of Congress obviously understood the importance of the groove, adding it to the National Recording Registry of culturally and historically important recordings in 2018.
Earth, Wind & Fire: September (Official music video)
5. Neil Young: Harvest Moon
Harvest Moon is the first single from Neil Young's nineteenth album of the same name, making 36 in the UK charts. The moon is an important recurring motif for Young, with him saying it has quasi-religious undertones. Frequent contributor, Linda Ronstadt provides backing vocals on the songs. Alex Petridis, writing in The Guardian, called it a "genuinely beautiful hymn to marriage and enduring love." The song feels like a bit of an end to the 'great musical journey' that had begun in the early 1970s, and can also be seen as a bit of a gentle counterpoint to the loud, anger of the grunge scene that was prevalent at the time (1992).
Neil Young: Harvest Moon (Official music video - just beautiful...)
6 The Kinks: Autumn Almanac
This was a 1967 non-album track that hit UK number 3. Band leader Ray Davies says that the song was inspired by a local hunch-backed gardener in Muswell Hill (the part of London the band hail from). Author Terry Rawlings calls the tune "A finely observed slice of English custom." Some critics say that this mellow phase of The Kinks output was akin to the pastoral Romanticism of poets like Wordsworth.
The Kinks: Autumn Almanac (Those Muswell Hillbillies on TOTP, 1967)
7. Yo La Tengo: Autumn Sweater
Yo La Tengo's eighth album, I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, expands on their previous guitar pop, by including additional elements like electronica and bossa nova. The album is broadly quite melancholic lyrically. Lead single, Autumn Sweater, is a simple and textured sing, and deals with love and a lack of communication. Noted critic Robert Christgau, writing in Spin, loved the record - saying that the first nine (of the sixteen total) songs were perfect, with Autumn Sweater being the "very peak".
Yo La Tengo: Autumn Sweater (Gorgeous version, live in Nashville, 2013)
8. U2: October
The songs for October, were largely written during and after the tour for debut record Boy, in early 1981, before the band headed into the studio for two months in July (and the album was fittingly released in October). Bono later recalled; "I remember the pressure it was made under, I remember writing lyrics on the microphone, and at £50 an hour, that's quite a pressure. Lillywhite [producer Steve] was pacing up and down the studio... he coped really well. And the ironic thing about October is that there's a sort of peace about the album, even though it was recorded under that pressure... I think October goes into areas that most rock 'n' roll bands ignore." Of the title track, Bono says, "'October'...it's an image. We've been through the 60s, a time when things were in full bloom. We had fridges and cars, we sent people to the moon and everyone thought how great mankind was. And now, as we go through the 70s and 80s, it's a colder time of the year. It's after the harvest. Trees are stripped bare. You can see things and we finally realize that maybe we aren't so smart after all, now that there's millions of unemployed people, now that we used the technology we've been blessed with to build bombs for war machines, to build rockets, whatever. So 'October' is an ominous word, but it's also quite lyrical."
U2: October (Live at Red Rocks, 1983)
9. Frank Sinatra: Autumn Leaves
This was originally written, as Les Feuilles Morts (The Dead Leaves), by Joseph Kosma in 1945, with French lyrics by Jacques Prévert in 1947, and English ones later done by Johnny Mercer in 1950 (a co-founder of Capitol Records). It is considered to be a jazz standard, with more than a thousand versions now out there from a wide range of jazz and pop artists. The biggest hit of the French language version, was by Yves Montand in 1949, which would eventually sell a million copies. English versions have included Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Doris Day, with a version by Louis Prima and Keely Smith used in the 1959 film Hey Boy! Hey Girl! Many jazz instrumentalists, like Artie Shaw, Stan Getz and John Coltrane have covered the tune - Frank Sinatra's version was recorded in 1957.
Frank Sinatra: Autumn Leaves (Live - another one for the fireside)
10. Big Star: September Gurls
September Gurls was written as a bit of a tribute to the Beach Boys' California Girls, but was also Alex Chilton's salute to three women in his life at the time (including his ex-wife) who all had September birthdays. Music journalist John M Borack said that it was "a glorious glittering jewel with every facet cut and shined to absolute perfection... [it is] a peerless, aching distillation of love and longing." As an interesting aside, Katy Perry's 2010 number one smash hit California Gurls, was spelled that way in tribute, as her manager was a massive Big Star fan.
Big Star: September Gurls (Audio only - enjoy it in all its poptastic glory!)
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