A year or two ago I wrote a Labor Day post where I characterized the holiday as the end of summer. Weather nerds predictably chimed in with the observation that meteorologic autumn begins with the Autumnal Equinox. Well, now that the equinox has come and gone nobody can complain when I say that Fall is upon us with cooler weather and shortening days. So here’s a collection of autumn songs.

Lou Reed “September Song” (comp. Kurt Weil)
Many songs that seem to be about fall are instead about being in the autumn of one’s life. So it is with this song where the singer realizes that he’s in the latter half of his life and declares his desire to spend his last precious days with the woman he’s singing to.

I like Lou Reed’s rockin’ treatment of this song. He’s appeared on at least two Kurt Weill tribute albums that I’m aware of and he seems to have a good feel for Weill’s music.

Rufus Wainwright “Harvest” (Neil Young)
This is a very nice unadorned version of the Neil Young song that really doesn’t have anything to do with bringing in the crops.

Chris Thile “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground” (White Stripes)
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a huge White Stripes fan. I find their music interesting conceptually but I just can’t stand to listen to the drumming very long. Thankfully I found this bluegrass version which I find very enjoyable to listen to.

In addition to impending mortality, many songs use autumn as a metaphor for the end of a relationship. Fall has always been my favorite season of the year and I find it disappointing that so many songwriters have such a negative view of it.

Gheto Blaster Ltd. “November Rain” (Guns N’ Roses)
This flaccid power ballad pretty much distills everything I hate about hair metal. The lyrics do work frighteningly well when retrofitted to a cool bossa nova. Maybe Axl Rose really is an underappreciated musical genius. On second thought, probably not.

This song comes from an album called Bossa n’ Roses which is, as you might expect, a collection of bossa nova arrangements of Guns N’ Roses songs. It’s one of those albums that I probably couldn’t sit through from start to finish although any individual tune is pretty good. The scary thing is that this is apparently part of a franchise, with an endless stream of bossa nova tribute albums.

Leon Redbone “Shine On Harvest Moon” (comp. Nora Bayes, Jack Norworth)
I saw Leon Redbone play when I was in college. It was the first time I had ever seen a small band with a tuba playing the bass parts. I didn’t know you were allowed to do that. Just one of those little epiphanies that make going away to college so worthwhile.

I grew up in a large city with massive light pollution, so I’ve always found the concept of a harvest moon to be rather evocative. To me it’s sort of an otherworldly event that happens far away.