Redtree Times

Dissolve– 2011

“Summer has no day,’ she said. ‘We can’t possibly have a summer love. So many people have tried that the name’s become proverbial. Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring, a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April. It’s a sad season of life without growth…it has no day.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Aah, the relief of being released from the grim grip of August…

I have long told of my extreme dislike of August on this blog. It has been with me as long as I can remember, extending back to my earliest memories. It’s like an inborn trait (or curse) written in my genes that has come through generations of ancestors who suffered the dog days of August in a similar way.

As a result, each first day of September feels like a day of liberation. This year, the universe even conspired to give us a lovely and brisk 49° morning to mark the occasion. I have noted this day most every year since I started writing this blog back in 2008. Yeah, it’s been that long. Hard to believe since it often feels like I ran out of things to say about 2009.

Every year on this day I share a version of the classic September Song. It has long been one of my favorite songs and becomes even more so with each passing year as it becomes more and more personally relevant.

Written by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, it was first sung, surprisingly, by Walter Huston in the stage production of Knickerbocker Holiday back in 1938.  Since then it has been covered by literally hundreds of musicians and singers throughout the world. I have listened to and played many of them here from a wide variety of artists. As it is with most great songs, most of them are wonderful renditions. It’s just that good a song.

It’s a bittersweet and slightly melancholy reflection on the passing of time, that inevitable march to old age symbolized in the turning of leaves and the shortening of the days. These precious days, as the song says.

I have played a favorite version from Willie Nelson a couple of times over the years. I love the spacing of the silences in his phrasing for the song. It really captures the feel and meaning of the song for me. This year’s version is from Willie playing along with his son’s band, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real. Lukas covers the vocals and does a fine job in emulating his father’s version of the song.

FYI, Lukas and his band were the backing band for Neil Young for several years and also appeared as the band for the character portrayed by director/star Bradley Cooper in the 2018 A Star Is Born movie. Lukas also wrote most of the music for the film, collaborating on much of it with Lady Gaga.

It’s a fine version for this year’s September 1. I chose the painting at the top, Dissolve, because as I was listening to a version of September Song from Willie Nelson, I was looking at an image of it. Willie’s silences in the song and those in the image seemed to mesh together so well that it surprised me. Made me think that the reason that September Song resonates so strongly for me is the reason that this painting holds so much meaning for me. It was painted back in 2011 and after making the rounds of the galleries including a couple of years on display in a DC area design center, finally came back to me about 5 or 6 years back.

I think of it as my own September Song. See for yourself. Take a look at it while you listen to Willie and Son.