For some reason, I find more music to be evocative of autumn than any other season. Each time I hear an album with a strikingly contemplative mood and subdued instrumentation, I instantly find myself imagining sidewalks cluttered with brown and red leaves. Here are some albums from a variety of genres to put on as the leaves change and the temperature begins to cool down.
Tom Rush – “The Circle Game”
Tom Rush’s “The Circle Game,” released in 1968, is a contemplative folk album featuring original songs, as well as covers of songs by Rush’s contemporaries like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne. The somber tone of Rush’s finger picked acoustic guitar is complemented by subtle lush orchestrations, accentuating the dark beauty of these folk songs.
I can’t listen to Rush’s cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Tin Angel” without instantly visualizing myself walking through a field of fallen leaves in the brisk September winds. While many of the album’s highlights are covers, the highlight of “The Circle Game” is arguably “No Regrets,” Rush’s most famous original composition.
The song presents a bittersweet perspective on a breakup and the lyrics of the chorus, “No regrets, no tears goodbye / Don’t want you back, we’d only cry again / Say goodbye again,” give the feeling of a cathartic release from burdensome emotions.
American Football – “American Football”
Everything about American Football’s debut studio album, from the cover photo taken in Champaign, Illinois, to the memorable twinkly guitar riff of “Never Meant,” is iconic. The album, which would come to define the Midwest emo genre, was released in September 1999 and captures a wistful sense of longing that provides a fitting soundtrack for the beginning of autumn, especially in the Midwest.
While the album’s opener “Never Meant” is instantly recognizable to many, tracks like “Honestly?” further establish the band’s melancholic, openly emotional style. The production is sparse and open and the listener gets the impression that it may very well have been recorded in the basement of the house from the album’s iconic cover photo. This borderline lo-fi sound places a powerful emphasis on the haunting yearning present in frontman Mike Kinsella’s lyrics.
Frank Sinatra – “September of My Years”
As an album that was specifically intended to represent the autumn months, it’s hard to associate Frank Sinatra’s late-career masterpiece “September of My Years” with anything else. Coinciding with Sinatra’s 50th birthday, the album puts a figurative spin on the season. The title track uses the month of September as a symbol of Sinatra’s aging and the new stage of his life he has just entered.
Much of this album is bittersweet in tone, with tracks like “It Was a Very Good Year” exploring the power of memory and nostalgia and the place memories hold in our minds as we grow older. Gordon Jenkins sweeping, old-fashioned string arrangements pepper the songs on the album with a special kind of subdued melancholy that would be difficult to replicate in any other genre or era.
