Autumn
There’s a grand piano where my dining room table should be. It’s where I teach, but I forget to just play it as of late. This song popped into my brain - the falling leaves and the dropping temp inspired it, I guess, but also it’s been autumn for me for much of the year. Maybe for others, too. I cannot presume to know that pain, but things are rough and confusing and heartbreaking. Ask anyone.
“Autumn” is from Maltby and Shire’s Starting Here, Starting Now, their musical revue that opened in 1976 at Manhattan Theatre Club. The composer-lyricist pair had parted ways for a while - Richard Maltby was in New York directing and David Shire had chosen to go to LA to write for film and TV; they were frustrated by the lack of interest in what they felt was some of their best work, albeit in under-celebrated shows.
So the revue presented a unique opportunity; it’s interesting - they hadn’t met with a ton of success, so for them it was like a beginning. How inspiring that they took a leap of faith in the middle of their careers and said, why not? So many things came together for them for this to be possible, not least among them “Autumn”, but the show is actually chock-full of gems (students - give it a listen!) .
There are these really strong songs created for, basically, theatrical oddities: “I Think I May Want To Remember Today” - huge hit - was from a show called Love Match about Queen Victoria rewriting history to better suit her. About this show, Maltby says they were “demented.” And “I Hear Bells,” also from Love Match , was supposed to be accompanied by all the bells in London. Tell me how? There’s even a tune from a musical about computer dating “Just Across The River,” that was waaaay ahead of its time. It starred Phyllis Newman and they called the show, appropriately, How Do You Do, I Love You . Thinking outside the box paid off for them. If you ever happen across an LP or CD of the original cast album of Starting Here, Starting Now, check out the liner notes by Michael Evans - fascinating.
“Autumn” is actually the first song the pair wrote together when they were undergrands at Yale (like you do), and it, too, has quite a pedigree. It was from their musical version of Cyrano de Bergerac staged during their junior year and it starred - get this - their classmate Dick Cavett, among others. Turns out that Barbra Streisand (!) was the first to record it. (Interested? Listen here; it’s predictably gorgeous.) In Starting Here, Starting Now , it’s used as the young woman character’s post-breakup blues.
The OG Cyrano program from the Yale production. Deep dives pay off…
Clearly that’s not my take. Yes, it’s melancholic and steeped in longing, and not a little regret. But hope is implicit in songs about seasons - something good will come back into life at the next turning. It’s a muscular hope, as the brilliant Krista Tippett at On Being calls it. Music is nothing if not muscularly hopeful.
Here are the full lyrics (I decided against an interlude and a return from the bridge because I didn't want to tempt fate, but that’s what the original does):
Messsrs. Maltby and Shire
Autumn,
It feels like autumn; Although the breeze is still,
I feel the chill af autumn.
Oh yes, it's autumn,
It's always autumn.
However green the hill,
To me it still is autumn.
I can feel the frost now,
That makes my spring and summer dreams seem lost now;
Why can't the autumn haze
Recall the days
Of warm summer laughter
That faded soon after,
In autumn?
He left in autumn,
And though another season’s here,
I feel the emptiness of autumn
All the year.
My favorite thing about the song is that “autumn” figure. Every time we hear the word, the figure descends in pitch on the second syllable. But in the last iterations of the word, the second syllable is actually higher in pitch than the first! We get it only twice: once as a surprising major chord in the penultimate line “the emptiness of autumn…” and in the very last moment of the song. To me, it says, maybe? possibly? things will be ok. It’s…..hope. Ish. In two notes, the song does this 180 and leaves me feeling inexplicably…positive.
Ok, class dismissed.
This “performance” is riddled with mistakes, imperfections and not-quites. The piano! She’s, um, well-loved. I use a new microphone I haven’t mastered, you can hear the wrong chords (no surprise there, I hear my students muttering. Call me mittens.), style and fussiness clash, I move my head away from the mic at times and sound underwater. But how appropriate for this moment I’m in. It wasn’t quite one-and-done, but it was close; it’s just…what it was that morning. Sometimes that’s enough; not perfect, but enough. And that leaves me excited to try it again.
I think it will be autumn for a little while yet, though. Rest assured, I’m working on my hope muscle.
What’s your autumn song?
What are you working on?
What would you like to hear next?
A little something extra for you: my dear friend Alyson Gold Weinberg just had her first book of poems published, and I am thrilled for her. The book is called Bellow and Hiss , and she will be reading from it in DC on November 7 and in NYC on November 15. And I get to read a poem at the DC event! (woop woop!)
Her words are so beautiful, including this poem on autumn, which is in the book. Her take on it: "it’s kind of dark.” True, but note the evergreens. Shared here, with permission from her and great admiration from me, and not a little hope.
And one more: if you’re curious about sad songs, their provenance and position in today’s musical society, read this, and then follow Ted Gioia - highly recommend.
