"September in the Rain": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"September in the Rain"

Other songs written for or used in Melody for Two currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook: none.

Patricia Dubin McGuire
Lullaby of Broadway: Life and Times of Al Dubin, One of America's Greatest Song Writers
Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1983.

Stars over Broadway was a movie largely devoted to showcasing the singing of James Melton an opera singer who had gained new popularity as a radio singer of pop songs in a quasi-operatic style. In fact the plot of the movie involves Melton playing a hotel porter with aspirations to become an opera singer. He struggles to overcome the influence of a slick promoter played by Pat O'Brien who wants to turn him into a radio singer -- ironically more or less reversing the course of Melton's real life career.

The story of the origin of "September in the Rain" comes in two versions. When working with Harry Warren, lyricist Al Dubin typically created lyrics for melodies already written or at least sketched out by his partner but, according to Dubin's daughter Patricia Dubin McGuire in her biography of her father, in the case of "September in the Rain," the opposite was true. Dubin had come up with a title with which he was very happy and proceeded directly into the lyric. Only then did Warren create the melody.

Warren tells it a bit differently: "It was Dubin who came up with the title "September in the Rain," which I liked, and I wrote the melody from the title. We saved it until we thought we had the right spot, and with Jimmie Melton we couldn't have got off to a better start."

In any case, it was Warren's melody -- without the lyric -- that got used in Stars over Broadway. At one point in the making of the movie, the song was intended as the musical accompaniment for a Busby Berkeley dance spectacular, but the number was dropped. By the time the movie was released, the melody was heard only as background music for several scenes: It's played briefly when Al enters his room when checking out, again at Witmark's when Nora tells Al about herself, and finally as dance music at the Sky Club.

The lyric was not heard on film until May, 1937, when Melton finally got to sing it in the Warner Bros. film, Melody for Two. another vehicle featuring his vocal prowess. The lyric could be heard, however, before Melton performed it that movie, because in February of '37 Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians recorded it with a vocal by Carmen Lombardo. (Listen at YouTube.)

Warren had a very high regard for Melton. Tony Thomas quotes the songwriter as saying, "Melton was both a very nice man and a marvelous singer. That was my kind of singer, and it was a pleasure to write for him -- you knew that he could sing anything you gave him and that it would be done with skill and taste. I wish I could say that of all the people I worked with." As nice as he was and as skilled as a singer, he was not made for the movies. After Stars over Broadway and Melody for Two, Melton never appeared on screen again (Thomas, p. 96).

Dubin had begun work on "September in the Rain" in 1934. At the time, he was still basically productive and content because he and Warren were under contract at Warner Bros., and he had the money he needed to indulge his unbridled desires for food, drink and women. The pressures of having to produce lyric after lyric, however, were getting to him and at home trouble was brewing. The tensions in his marriage became so great he had to move out on several occasions. In fact, according to McGuire's biography, he finished the lyric for "September in the Rain" while living at the home of fellow songwriter Moe Jerome where he had gone to escape the tension in his house, not to mention the ban on alcohol his wife had instituted.

Despite this period being a high point for Dubin's creative output, it was the beginning of a personal downward spiral from which he would never emerge. "September in the Rain" was, in fact, the last song of genius he wrote with Warren, and in 1938, the year Warren left Warner Bros. for Twentieth Century Fox, he was humiliated that Warners assigned a young Johnny Mercer to help him write. It didn't help much. Without Warren's music and because of his personal deterioration he was never the same. It wasn't long after that Dubin left the studio -- and his heretofore brilliant career behind forever (See McGuire, p. 135 ff.).

Philip Furia and
Michael Lasser,
America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley,
New York: Routledge, 2006.

Philip Furia and Michael Lasser in their book America's Songs, demonstrate how the combination of words and music of "September in the Rain" combine to create the images of a potent fall image that persists in memory after autumn departs and even when spring returns, an image of how "the leaves of brown came tumbling down, / Remember?"

For such a remembrance the lyric's rhythm is suitably interruptive -- "remember / In September -- in the rain" -- as the conversational tone points to what's particular about the memory: "'The sun went out just like a dying ember, that September in the Rain." Looking back the song concludes that the memory of autumn remains more vivid than the current spring: "'Though spring is here, to me it's still September." The claim is hyperbolic, the language offhanded, the effect arresting (Furia and Lasser, p. 144, hardcover Ed.) .

Click here to read the lyrics for "September in the Rain," as sung by Frank Sinatra, recorded August 31, 1960, arranged by Nelson Riddle on Capitol for the album
Swingin Session and More.

Arne, 10/12/2014: "BING SINGS WHILST BREGMAN SWINGS" was, to the contrary, certainly released in 1956 on Verve records. It was released again, under a different title ("Bing Sings The Great Standards") in 1963, on MGM records (They had acquired the Verve recordings by then).

• James Melton: ILoveJenni47
• Bing Crosby: jclc1608
• Sarah Vaughan: dgbailey777
• Dinah Washington: Serenata20101
• The Beatles: TheOneBeatleManiac

Notes

• Other songs used in Stars over Broadway currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook :
• 1. Lulu's Back in Town (not written for this movie)
• For a complete listing of songs used in Stars over Broadway , see IMDB soundtracks .
• For a complete listing of songs used in Melody for Two , see IMDB soundtracks .
• Tony Thomas (with forward by Bing Crosby) Harry Warren and the Hollywood Musical , Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1975
• James Melton sings "September in the Rain," the version heard in the 1937 movie Melody for Two .
• They elaborate on how the songwriters achieve their poetic effect:
• Listen to the track in the Record/Video Cabinet at right .
• The complete lyrics for "September in the Rain" are published in:

Cite this page: "September in the Rain": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/s/september_in_the_rain.html