There are few songs that can bring generations together to the dancefloor, but that is just what Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘September’ has been doing since its release in November 1978. It even made #1 on our Wildcatter’s Score List of Top 20 Greatest Disco Songs. The story starts with Allee Willis, a struggling songwriter in LA. Willis received a call from band leader, Maurice White, inviting her to co-write the band’s next album. Over the next month they had written the famous ‘September’, gaining inspiration from clear skies and dancing under the stars. The song was recorded in, you guessed it… September of 1978.
Willis tells NPR of the process, “The, kind of, go-to phrase that Maurice used in every song he wrote was ‘ba-dee-ya’. So right from the beginning he was singing, ‘Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember / Ba-dee-ya, dancing in September.’ And I said, ‘We are going to change ‘ba-dee-ya’ to real words, right?’ “.
After begging Maurice to change it and failing to change his mind, she finally asked, “What the f- – – does ‘ba-dee-ya’ mean?” And he essentially said, ‘Who the f- – – cares?’” she says. “I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.”
So what makes this groove so powerful? Jeffrey Peretz, a professor of music theory at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute, says, “The song’s very structure is an endless cycle that keeps us dancing and wanting more. There’s four chords in the chorus that just keep moving forward and never seem to land anywhere — much like the four seasons.”
The song that never ends, shows no signs of slowing down. It brings together generations with one simple question, “Do you remember the 21st night of September?” This famous line keeps us yearning and is up to the listener to supply the memories.
While the song was recorded in September, the famous date really has no significant meaning, explains Willis, “We went through all the dates: ‘Do you remember the first, the second, the third, the fourth … ‘ and the one that just felt the best was the 21st. I constantly have people coming up to me and they get so excited to know what the significance was. And there is no significance beyond it just sang better than any of the other dates. So … sorry!”