True September Songs = Songs About Getting Old Written By Older Songwriters.
For stylistic reasons, our song, "True September Songs," didn't make it onto our 2018 album, Of All These Things. In December of 2021, I was organizing old music files and ran across this 2018 recording and was surprised by how far we got in the process before shelving it. This version was fully mixed by Jeff Peters but it just didn't feel right for Of All These Things at the time.
The song is about how a few important classic "rock" songs about old age--three very significant songs for me when I was younger--were written by VERY young songwriters:
"Old Friends" - Simon & Garfunkel
"Sixty Years On" - Elton John
"When I'm Sixty Four" - The Beatles
Elton John's "Sixty Years On" has aged very well, in my opinion. Musically it is genius, but lyrically it is a bit suspect because he and Bernie Taupin, his lyricist, were only 20 years old or so at the time. They are both in their seventies now and must look back on the lyrics as a bit naive.
Our song also references two songs--Johnny Cash's version of Trent Reznor's song "Hurt" and Willie Nelson's "September Song"--for being examples of what we'd consider "true September songs." Obviously, our song's name references the name of Willie's beautiful song about getting old.
"Hurt" was written by a young Trent Reznor, but the brilliant way Johnny Cash does this song in the winter of his life means that it qualifies as a truly true September song.
Back in 2018, I felt the style of our song wasn't quite cool enough ... too sort of classic "rock" style for an album we wanted to sound more contemporary. Maybe, if we released more songs that were done in a classic "rock" style, we'd get more of a following of older listeners ... but, low and behold, too many older folks, especially boomers, tend to listen to what they listened to when they were in the spring of their lives, if they listen to anything at all. Not many people past fifty listen to new music.
Our song was produced and mixed by Jeff Peters. It was recorded at Jeff's studio, The Pie in Pasadena, and at Electrokitty Studio in Seattle. That's my very talented nephew, Tyler Nuffer, on electric guitar.
Credits:
Eric Anders - Vocals Mark O'Bitz - Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals Tyler Nuffer - Electric Guitar Dylan Cooper - Upright Bass Herman Matthews - Drums Garrett Reynolds - Violin Randy Ray Mitchell - Additional production Matthew Emerson Brown - Engineer, arrangement, initial band recordings.
True September Songs
(©2017 Anders/O’Bitz/Gallardo)
When they sang “a time it was”
Those “old friends” time did barely know
And when he first sang “sixty years on”
He was a very young Elton John
And Bernie Taupin more so
Who sings aloud true September songs
Should have lived past summer and lived strong
Truly understand Willie’s “precious few days”
And keenly feel Johnny’s “Hurt” ways
He’s now much more than sixty-four
Does that old song still make Paul’s show
Does Roger still wish that death had taken hold
Before he had ever grown old
No, it was just for show
Who sings aloud true September songs
Should have lived past summer and lived strong
Truly understand Willie’s “precious few days”
And keenly feel Johnny’s “Hurt” ways
These two know what to sing
Cuz they’ve lived what they mean
Time allowed them to stay true
Give experience its due
And a retrospective view
Who sings aloud true September songs
Should have lived past summer and lived strong
Should understand Willie’s “precious few days”
And keenly feel Johnny’s “Hurt” ways
Who sings aloud true September songs
Should have lived past summer and lived strong
Should understand Willie’s “precious few days”
And keenly feel Johnny’s “Hurt” ways
Keenly feel his ways
Johnny’s “Hurt” ways
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