It is inevitable: when the rhythmic guitar chords begin, the legs take control of the body and by the time the trumpets and saxes explode, the dance floor (or the living room) is already a shake of bodies. September lifts your spirits, Turn a lazy day into a party and open a stormy sky to let the sun shine. That: magic. The Earth, Wind & Fire song has become an unexpected Christmas theme in Spain thanks to the animated film Robot Dreams, Pablo Berger's film that premiered on December 6 and has already won the award for best European animated film, Forqué, is a favorite for the Goya in its category and a candidate to sneak into the Oscars. And all this with September occupying a crucial space (it plays up to seven times in different versions) to narrate an ode to the friendship between a robot and a dog. A mother leaving the film in a theater in the center of Madrid says: “I chose the film, but I sensed that my six-year-old son might like it. And so it has been.” Days later, that same mother reported that September It is part of the kid's song list along with Quevedo or Bizarrap.
Berger (Bilbao, 59 years old) is a fan of black music: funk, soul, jazz, hip hop… The director of Robot Dreams He tells by phone: “The film takes place from September of one year to September of another, in the mid-eighties. Although the song is from 1978, it was still very popular in the eighties and people danced to it while skating through Central Park, like the protagonists of the movie, Robot and Dog.” And he adds: “I have heard it thousands of times, and I never get tired of it. I still like. It's something mysterious. It has passed the test of time. It changes your mood in a second and puts you in a good mood. And it's amazing, because it was a success at the time and it still is now: on Spotify it has 1.5 billion views.”
In the history of September A stupid phrase, an enigmatic date, the collaboration of three people in its composition (one outside the group) and even (oh, surprise) Taylor Swift intersect. Earth, Wind & Fire had already been publishing good works for several years before publishing September. Talk on the phone Luis Lapuente, black music expert and author, among other books, History of disco music (Efe Eme): “It is a group from the seventies, but anchored in the sixties because its leader, Maurice White, was playing drums for recordings on the Chess label and in the Ramsey Lewis Trio, who performed soul-jazz. White was a powerful percussionist and his brother played bass very well. They were already important people in the soul of the sixties in Chicago.”
White moved to Los Angeles in the early seventies and set up Earth, Wind & Fire, a large group that offered spectacular concerts for the time: they even set up large pyramids on stage and performed magic acts where they made people disappear. They practiced soft funk with clean messages and White became, in addition to being the leader, the lead singer. “Although in Spain they are known for songs from the late seventies and early eighties such as Boogie Wonderland, Let's Groove either September, Since the mid-seventies they have released albums that can be considered masterpieces: That's the Way of the World (1975), Gratitude (1975), Spirit (1976), All'n All (1977). And they had one of the best falsettos in the history of black music, Philip Bailey, on vocals,” Lapuente points out.
In 1978 they published September. The fever of disco music and nightclubs with mirror balls swept the world. Three people collaborate in the composition. The band's guitarist, Al McKay, and White himself created the musical structure, which combines funk and soul, the essence of the album. For the lyrics, White called upon Allee Willis, an atypical writer. She didn't know how to read music, but she possessed a prodigious ear. Born in Detroit, as a child she sat in the Motown studios of that city (the essential soul label) and, listening, learned everything that she later developed as a writer not only for Earth, Wind & Fire: she is the author of the very famous series theme Friends (I'll Be There for You, that the Rembrandts performed) and has composed for Pet Shop Boys, Cyndi Lauper, Sister Sledge and Bonnie Raitt. The first thing White did was give Willis three books on spiritual philosophies and cosmology, “so that he would capture the essence that he wanted to convey in the song.” “I opened one of the books and I panicked: there were only metaphors and legends from ancient Egypt,” Willis, who died in 2019 at the age of 72, said on many occasions.
In the end they reached an agreement because what White wanted to tell was, ultimately, a happy love story. They had a major crash. A crucial part of the lyrics emerges in the chorus, three syllables: “Ba-de-ya, say, do you remember? / Ba-de-ya, dancing in September / Ba-de-ja, never was a cloudy day” (Ba-de-ya, say, do you remember? / Ba-de-ya, dancing in September / Ba-de -ya, there was never a cloudy day). “Ba-de-ya” was the expression White used when she didn't have lyrics, but she wanted to rehearse the melody. “It seemed like a stupid phrase to me. It didn't mean anything. I fought hard to remove it and replace it with something people would understand. When it was going to be recorded I told him: 'Maurice, we'll change that, right? Because what the hell does ba-de-ya mean?' And that very spiritual man calmly told me: 'Who the hell cares what it means? Never let the lyrics get in the way of the rhythm.' It's a lesson I've since applied in my career. If the rhythm and melody are good, it doesn't matter what words you use, even if they are onomatopoeic, because emotionally people will understand it,” Willis told Spotify in 2018.
The mystery of that first stanza where he cites a date remains to be solved: Do you remember, 21st night of September? (Do you remember the night of September 21?). To the disappointment of all those who since 1978 have chosen that date to get married, the choice of the day is absolutely pragmatic: White reported on many occasions that he chose it because it “simply suited him in cadence and rhythm.” She tried “one”, “two”, “three”… And the one that convinced her was 21. However, in 2018, Willis told Wall Street Journal that Marilyn White, already the widow of Maurice (who died in 2016 at the age of 74), told him at a dinner that September 21 was the expected date for the birth of their child and that is why Maurice chose her. Then the offspring went ahead and entered the world in August.
Whether this version is true or not, the truth is that September 21 is the preferred date to get married for Americans. September It continues to appear in movies, series, it plays at weddings, it is used for both Democratic and Republican Party conventions and retains a strong validity beyond Earth, Wind & Fire themselves, which began to lose relevance from the mid-eighties onwards. with the emergence of pop greats such as Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince.
Berger assumes the effort he had to make to make it sound in his film: “It cost a lot in every way. Music rights to include songs in a movie are very expensive. And if you add to that that the cost increases due to the number of times it appears in the film… It was a long, complex negotiation, with many lawyers and contracts. But I think it was worth the effort.” Berger's only daughter, 20, was born on September 21, something she realized when she had already purchased the rights to the song. One more mystery.
This story is missing a coda, which is signed by the current pop goddess, Taylor Swift. Because the expansive wave of the song has reached the singer's heart: in 2018 she performed an intimate version of September. But he changed the date to September 28. The singer's millions of fans got to work to find out why. And they found it: that day she began her relationship with her boyfriend at the time, Joe Alwyn. One more demonstration of the immortality of the song.
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