Twitter Gathers In Celebration For Earth, Wind & Fire Day
Social Media Gathers In Celebration For Earth, Wind & Fire Day
Source: Michael Putland / Getty
Do you remember the 21st night of September? Love was changin’ the minds of pretenders While chasin’ the clouds away Our hearts were ringin’ in the key that our souls were singin’ As we danced in the night, remember How the stars stole the night away, oh, yeah
According to an NPR profile on the track, the song’s classic “ba-dee-ya” refrain from song co-writer and performer Maurice White almost didn’t make it. From NPR: Using a progression composed by Earth, Wind & Fire guitarist Al McKay, White and Willis wrote the song over the course of a month, conjuring images of clear skies and dancing under the stars. Willis says she likes songs that tell stories, and that at a certain point, she feared the lyrics to “September” were starting to sound simplistic. One nonsense phrase bugged her in particular. “The, kind of, go-to phrase that Maurice used in every song he wrote was ‘ba-dee-ya,’ ” she says. “So right from the beginning he was singing, ‘Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember / Ba-dee-ya, dancing in September.’ And I said, ‘We are going to change ‘ba-dee-ya’ to real words, right?’” Wrong. Willis says that at the final vocal session she got desperate and begged White to rewrite the part. “And finally, when it was so obvious that he was not going to do it, I just said, ‘What the f*** does ‘ba-dee-ya’ mean?’ And he essentially said, ‘Who the f*** cares?’” she says. “I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.” That’s amazing. Check out some Earth, Wind & Fire tunes, including “September,” by following the tweet from the band below. — Photo: GettySocial Media Gathers In Celebration For Earth, Wind & Fire Day was originally published on hiphopwired.com
