September

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow,
Try to remember and if you remember then follow.

Some songs seem to echo in your mind. They are always there beneath the surface like old friends. Those words above for example. I researched them this evening. It seems they were written by a lyricist called Tom Jones to a tune by a composer called Harvey Schmidt (both pictured below). Back in 1960 the song "Try to Remember" featured in a new musical I had previously never heard of - "The Fantasticks".

Maybe it's because I have spent most of my adult life working in education that the month of September has a special aura about it. It's the end of the summer and I'm back at work. There's a long dark tunnel leading to mid-winter. It feels as if something has died as another academic conveyor-belt year begins. Those lyrics are about trying to remember in the full knowledge that your effort will be in vain because the kind of September the writer was thinking of has already slipped away. Besides, what should we "follow"?

Wake up Maggie I think I got something to say to you

It's late September and I really should be back at school

I know I keep you amused but I feel I'm being used

Oh Maggie I couldn't have tried any more

(lyrics by Rod Stewart)