Happy Earth, Wind and Fire Day

Today is September 21st, the subject of one of the most joyful recordings ever made, which comes with an all-time-great music video.

The song in turn inspired my favorite work of fan art.

From this fascinating NPR story, I learned the significance of the date September 21st, which is that there is none. They chose the date because it sounds good. Also:

Using a chord progression written by Earth, Wind & Fire guitarist Al McKayAllee Willis and Maurice White wrote the song over one month. Willis was originally bothered by the gibberish “ba-dee-ya” lyric White used through the song, and begged him to rewrite it: “I just said, ‘What the fuck does ‘ba-dee-ya’ mean?’ And he essentially said, ‘Who the fuck cares?’ I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.”

And let’s talk about that chord progression, it’s an extraordinary one. Here’s my transcription of the main groove:

If you’re a guitarist, here’s how to play it:

Music-theoretically, “September” is less complicated than it looks. It’s an eight bar loop that repeats throughout the song with not much variation. The first six measures of the loop walk up and down chords that are diatonic to A major, meaning they can all be created by combining the notes in the A major scale.

To make any of the chords, start on a scale degree, let’s say D. Then skip the next scale degree clockwise, in this case E, to land on the following one, F-sharp. Keep going around the circle clockwise, grabbing every other scale degree. If you start on D, you get D, F-sharp, A, and C-sharp, which makes a Dmaj7 chord.

If you start on C-sharp, you get C-sharp, E, G-sharp, and B, which makes C#m7. If you start on B, you get Bm7, and if you start on F-sharp, you get F#m7. These chords all sound so smooth and logical together because they’re all produced by the notes in the same major scale. You might not know consciously what the relationship is between them, but you’ve been hearing major scales all your life, and it’s a familiar sound.

Except here’s the interesting thing: the A chord itself never appears in the song. They use just about every chord in the key except for the one that defines it. The other chord that strongly defines a major key is the V chord, which in this case is E7. That chord never appears in “September” either. It isn’t totally clear what key the song is in, really; it could be F-sharp minor or C-sharp minor. The rhythm and melody are unmistakably joyous, but the chords keep you in doubt.

And there’s another harmonic twist too. So far, I’ve only been talking about the first six bars of the eight-bar loop. The last two bars introduce something new, a slash chord: a G major triad with A in the bass. It has the A root you’ve been waiting for, except now there’s a totally different chord on top of it. You could also might spell this chord as A7sus4 (or A9sus4 if you want to get technical.) That suggests the song isn’t in A major at all, but rather A Mixolydian mode.

Major and Mixolydian are almost the same scales, except that the seventh note in the A major scale is G-sharp, while the seventh note in A Mixolydian is G natural. That small change makes a world of difference in how the scales sound. Mixolydian is bluesier, tougher, and less European-sounding than plain-vanilla major.

You hear plenty of Mixolydian in rock, pop, and dance music, so it’s still a friendly and familiar sound, but when used in combination with major, it creates a complex mood. Also, the suspension in the A7sus4 never gets released. You expect the D to resolve to C-sharp, and it does, but not as part of the “home chord” of A7. Instead, the C-sharp is part of the equally unresolved-feeling Dmaj7 chord at the beginning of the next time around the loop.

All this harmonic ambiguity and unresolved tension helps give “September” its depth and sophistication. It’s a party song, but there’s some wistfulness tucked away inside that groove. It’s a lot to think about while you’re dancing. Anyway, happy September 21st.

One thought on “Happy Earth, Wind and Fire Day

  1. Earth Wind & Fire September; What a joyous song. What an inspiring band!
    The recent Minister for the Arts in the Australian Federal Parliament Mitch Fifield nominated
    this song as the one he puts on in his office to help him with revival after any exhausting
    bit of political strife, (perfect choice) and called it in his opinion the greatest piece of art he knew of.
    21 September is the Spring Equinox for me, Autumn Equinox in the northern hemisphere, when day and night are of equal length, a most significant date in astrological and agricultural terms, for those who watch the sky
    and those who plant crops in the earth, not that that is directly relevant to the lyric.

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