September Fields

September. The month of the harvest – if it hasn’t already taken place. So what did we harvest from my blog posts in September? As has become my custom for more than a year now I’m bringing you a review of last month’s posts, in case you missed anything or simply have to see one of them again.

It began, as usual, with my recap of the previous month, in Dear August, which included links to all of the August offerings and, to mark my stealing it as my title, a lovely little tune from Noah Cyrus and PJ Harding. Noah is, for me, definitely the more talented sister, and if you didn’t catch it do revisit that post and see for yourself what I mean. I had featured one of her songs for July, too, but as far as I know she hasn’t yet written a song about September – but this month’s is an absolute corker, your reward at the end of the post for getting through all this drivel.

As always, each Tuesday last month saw another episode of Tuesday Tunes. All four of them concentrated on the Eighties, beginning with Tuesday Tunes 71: Eighties Second Encore. This was the third post in my mini-series of songs I liked which had sold enough copies to feature in the annual top forty charts of each year in the decade, and included music from Starship, Prince, Alice Cooper, Mike Oldfield (with Maggie Reilly), Mike + The Mechanics, Cyndi Lauper, Peter Gabriel and The Hooters.

I then began another three post mini-series of Eighties albums – not related to the charts, just music I liked and bought at the time. The first was Tuesday Tunes 72: Eighties Albums, which had music by AC/DC, Midnight Oil, R.E.M. (one video and a link to another), Steve Winwood (two videos plus a link), Tom Petty (x2), and Bruce Springsteen (x3). A real bumper issue with some great music.

Tuesday Tunes 73: More Eighties Albums did exactly what it said on the tin, giving you music from Guns N’ Roses (x2), Paul Simon (x2), The Waterboys (x3) and Dire Straits ( x2, both epics).

Looking back over those two posts, you get a good idea of how my musical taste had evolved over time, becoming much more rock music-oriented. I took this one step further with September’s final Tuesday piece, Tuesday Tunes 74: ‘Lesser Known’ Eighties in which I deliberately chose to go down a less travelled path and, for the most part, share some music that I loved but which had made less of an impact on the UK charts – that is ‘less’ as defined by ‘not much or absolutely none.’ This just featured three acts, but a combined total of nine videos, from The Traveling Wilburys (x2), John Mellencamp (x3), and Ry Cooder (x4). This was my favourite post of the three: I enjoyed them all a lot in compiling them, but this last one has to date been the least viewed, liked and commented post of the whole Tuesday Tunes series. Maybe the title I gave it put some people off? I don’t know, but for whatever reason it hasn’t done well, so far – but it is only three days old so maybe it will see a sudden upsurge of interest (he said, more in hope than expectation!). Playing it safe, though, I’ll be moving on from the Eighties next Tuesday: I already have my theme chosen, and a set of great music to accompany it.

I marked the solemn anniversary of 9/11, as I have done before, in 9/11 Twenty Years On, in which I gave you a few thoughts about what this might mean, and centred them around a stunningly beautiful, poignant song by the ever excellent Mary Chapin Carpenter.

I also made one of my occasional returns to a previous series in Another #SaturdaySong Revisited. You don’t know which song this was, or the memories it evoked for me? There’s only one way to find out: click that link!

I was very pleased that my most popular post of the month, in terms of likes, was my dip back into a piece I wrote some years ago in my only attempt, so far, at showing you my credentials as a lover of art. This post was Art History 101, about a painting that entranced me while I was studying the history of art at university and, as it was also a favourite of Freddie Mercury – who wrote a song about it – it gave me an excuse to squeeze in a little music, too. The post continues to be popular – it has just received another ‘like’ while I’ve been writing this!

This just leaves one more of September’s nine posts to mention. This was another reworking, but it proved no less popular for that, I’m happy to say! The post was Another Year Older, which I shared on my birthday to mark my year of birth – 1953. This was by any reckoning a pretty momentous year, even allowing for my arrival. The post gave you a pot pourri of news clips, some links to Pathé News, some music, some cartoons, and a general review of that year. Plenty to dip into!

So, that was September’s harvest. Keeping that rather tenuous link going, here is the tune from which I’ve purloined this month’s title:

I absolutely love this song, and I think Frazey Ford has the most amazing voice. She is Canadian, and originally came to my notice by being a founder member of the folk/Americana band The Be Good Tanyas, of which she is still a part, though she has now released three solo albums too. This was on the second of those, Indian Ocean, which was recorded in Memphis with Al Green’s backing band and released in 2014: it has that feel, doesn’t it. It is a great album: if you enjoyed that one, try this too.

So, that was my September. We’re now into autumn, which will bring with it new thoughts and maybe some music for me to share as the month moves onward. See you next time and, hopefully, for what appears here along the way.