16 Songs for Autumn

“I Can’t See You” (Tim Buckley)
An energetic folk-rock rhythm drives this first track from Tim Buckley’s first record. His song summons images of hippies wandering the streets in California circa 1966. A mysterious Scorpio girl who looks like Grace Slick, her eyes dark as obsidian or onyx, stares back at you.

“Autumn temptress, sundown angel
Inside your blood you aren’t so young
I came to you a loving vandal
And heard your heart and touched your tongue
Day became a lighted candle
Sky fell down beneath your sandal
In your eye I began to spin……….
Trick or treat, the Halloween world
Hide and seek but you can’t catch me
I won’t chase you until you hurl
Your wing to me, and make me twirl
You’re alive underneath my skin”

“Turn Into Earth” (The Yardbirds)
Jim McCarty’s ceremonial percussion initiates the ritual: bassist Paul Samwell-Smith and rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja harmonize a psychedelic Gregorian chant that Samwell-Smith composed. Samwell-Smith also wrote the equally psychedelic lyrics sung by vocalist Keith Relf that tell the tale of how we all must go back underground.

“Dying leaves of seasons brown
Losing life as they drift down
Too soon in life, return to earth
Only they can know their worth”

“My Autumn’s Done Come” (Lee Hazlewood)
Lee Hazlewood’s gravel voice and resigned tone in this baroque pop gem sound like a man much older than his thirty-seven years when he recorded this track. The cinematic string section and his wry lyrics imbue a contemplative mood.

“October Song” (The Incredible String Band)
Robin Williamson’s acoustic arrangement is as ancient as the hills, mountains, and valleys of the British Isles and his eccentric, philosophical lyrics are reminiscent of Dylan Thomas:

“The fallen leaves that jewel the ground
They know the art of dying
And leave with joy their glad gold hearts
In the scarlet shadows lying”

“Autumn Stone” (The Small Faces)
Recorded in September 1968, Steve Marriott’s mellow, relaxed song is as refreshing as bright blue skies and a gentle breeze on a fall afternoon.

“Cyprus Avenue” (Van Morrison)
Recorded on September 25, 1968, Van Morrison’s ecstatic reverie of a neighborhood in his hometown of Belfast, Northern Ireland and a beatific vision of a fourteen year old girl in a carriage “returning from the fair”, “Cyprus Avenue” is the cosmic centerpiece of his nostalgic Astral Weeks, his most acclaimed album and one of the greatest records of the 1960s. Larry Fallon’s harpsichord and strings sound like the autumn wind blowing through the falling golden leaves.

“King Harvest” (The Band)
Released on September 22, 1969, the band’s self-titled album featured “King Harvest” as the closing track. Levon Helm’s Arkansas accent brings authenticity to this Americana yarn of farmers, union workers, and “scarecrow and a yellow moon, and pretty soon a carnival on the edge of town.”

“It’s Raining Today” (Scott Walker)
The opening track from Scott 3 (released in 1969), this song is a cinematic, melancholy masterpiece. His lyrics and vocals describing a “street corner girl” as a “cold trembling leaf” are deeply haunting.

“Epitaph” (Trees)
Celia Humphris’ witchy vocals repeat an olde tyme refrain of “Die” and then spin a story of an English fall landscape: foggy, forlorn, and gray.

“Searching the water, follow a line
Rose petals ripple ‘round a swimming swan
When God was lonely, a song was sung
A tune to echo like a dying sun
Leaves settle slowly when the autumn comes”

“Autumn Childhood” (Forest)
Released at the end of 1970, Full Circle is an acid folk hidden gem, containing enchanting instrumentation, poetic lyrics of medieval life and mother nature, and strange singing. This closing track is one of the standout songs on the record (alongside “Graveyard”.)

“And burning wood smoke filled my head
And autumn gold bend out my eyes
Autumn spread its wings to fold me
And take me back”

“Harvest Breed” (Nick Drake)
Recorded October 30, 1971, Pink Moon was Nick Drake’s final record before his tragic death at the age of twenty-six. This brief track (only a minute and a half in duration) appears to be written from the perspective of an autumn leaf as it descends to the earth.

“Falling fast and falling free you look to find a friend

Falling fast and falling free this could just be the end
Falling fast you stoop to touch and kiss the flowers that bend
And you’re ready now
For the harvest breed”

“Harvest Moon” (Neil Young)
Neil Young returned to his country roots (from Harvest) twenty years later on this track in 1992. It’s a simple song, but the background female vocals, pedal steel twang, and slow dance sway set the scene for an autumn night with your lover.

“October Sunshine” (Mercury Rev)
An ambient instrumental from the band’s forgotten and underrated 2008 record Snowflake Midnight, this track, in only two ephemeral and fleeting minutes, paints an abstract picture of the title: an ethereal, ghostly glow.

“Late October” (Brian Eno & Harold Budd)
The opening track from The Pearl (released in 1984), this is one of Brian Eno’s most brilliant moments because of its crystalline, perfect solitude: birds distant on the horizon flying south and the last leaves drifting far away on the northern wind.

“Rose Hip November” (Vashti Bunyan)
Vashti Bunyan’s delicate vocals and reflective lyrics draw a magical, mythical, pastoral portrait:

“Autumn I’ll remember, gold landing at our door
Catch one leaf and fortune will surround you evermore
Mist hangs very still caught by dawn in castle moats around the sleeping hill
Now a pipe is heard, happy is the shepherd
Shepherdess and dog, father of the pastureland and mother of the flock”

“Late November” (Sandy Denny)
Sandy Denny is the best British female folk singer in music history and her solo debut The North Star Grassman and the Ravens is a classic record, especially the opening track “Late November” which is one of her greatest songs. The atmospheric, poetic lyrics and her powerful vocals perfectly depict the weird, wild landscapes:

“The wine it was drunk, the ship it was sunk
The shot it was dead, all the sorrows were drowned
The birds they were clouds, the brides and the shrouds
And as we drew south, the mist it came down

The wooded ravine to the wandering stream
The serpent he moved, but no one would say
The depth of the waters, the bridge which distraught us
And brought to me thoughts of the ill-fated day”

by Mark Lager

Tune in to Mark Lager’s radio show ‘Thursday Trips’- streaming online Thursdays 7-8 P.M. (Mountain Time) at: http://www.primcast.com/radio/610946