‘I Should Be Over It . . .’

 We are in the flip side of autumn. 

The oaks, poplars and maples offer stark, bare branches instead of the brown, gold and red glory they gave us just scant weeks ago. Dusk comes to us earlier and earlier each day (and will take an astounding jump in doing so a week from now when the time changes). There is more than a chill in the air in the mornings; it’s simply cold. Not as cold as it will be in another seven weeks, or even four, but it is cold. 

I have written more words than I can ever recall about autumn and its bittersweet joys, especially the autumn when I was twenty-two. I once wrote in a piece, “As is the case for any man who cherishes a time long gone, I will insist for the rest of my life that during the autumn of 1975, the sun shone brighter, the golden leaves stayed on the trees longer, the laughter was louder, the girls were prettier and the music was better.” 

And I added, “About that last, there is no question.” 

Yet, great music notwithstanding, that autumn ended as all of them do, in a month or more of bitter wind, increasing gloom, and rain and snow both. 

I know of several songs that catalog the bittersweet of autumn; I’ve shared a few of them here in the last few years: “Blue River” by Eric Andersen, Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where The Time Goes,” and “Whispering Pines” and “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” by The Band. 

And the other week, one came my way that captures the way things feel today, as we enter the flip side of the season: “When October Goes” by Barry Manilow. The song is based on an unfinished lyric by Johnny Mercer. Manilow, with the permission of Mercer’s widow, wrote a haunting melody and did some work on the lyrics. It was first released on Manilow’s 1984 album 2:00 AM Paradise Café, and although I’d likely heard it before, this time it caught my attention. 

And it’s one of the few songs that matters much today: 

And when October goes
The snow begins to fly
Above the smoky roofs
I watch the planes go by 

The children running home beneath
A twilight sky
Oh, for the fun of them
When I was one of them 

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And you are in my arms
To share the happy years
I turn my head away to hide
The helpless tears
Oh, how I hate to see October go 

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And you are in my arms
To share the happy years
I turn my head away to hide
The helpless tears
Oh, how I hate to see October go 

I should be over it now, I know
It doesn’t matter much how old I grow
I hate to see October go

– whiteray