Thursday, September 21, 2017

The Eternal September

Am NPR story from earlier this month relates the history of Earth Wind and Fire's "September," a 1978 hit that is one of the evergreens of the dance floor, radio playlist or windows-down volume-up drives down a sunlit boulevard.

Writer Dan Charnas tells the story of how the song was written, how it got its "ba-di-ya" chorus and why the specific date referenced is the 21st. According to the headline, the main purpose of the story is to explain the song's longevity and its popularity. Charnas' story is a cool little slice of history, but the headline is asks the wrong question. We don't need to read a retrospective on "September" to understand why it's lasted so long and why people will still groove to it 39 years later. We just have to push "play:"


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