It only makes sense that a season so full of beauty and change would inspire lovely love songs. Today for Stardust, I wrote a tribute to September. Beginning with Georgia Brown and her September Song while Frank Sinatra evoked the crisp days and bustling crowds of Autumn In New York.

In Lullaby Of The Leaves, Anita O’Day reminds us that you can be in love with a place just as you can a person. She refers to the American South where she spent a cozy youth. Now that she is older and alone, she nostalgically reflects on the homeland that cradled her with familiarity and contentedness.

Dinah Washington is enchanting with her September In The Rain. That rush of love that is hard to capture in words. Love, whether it strikes at sixteen or sixty, always brings with it a new magic. No one is perfect until you fall in love with them. The strangest thing is how surprising it all is–that love is really happening. You could flirt all year and kiss one night and it feels like a game. Like something that would never happen. It’s the difference between standing near a fire and being the wood that burns.

Also in my Stardust line up, I play an older, wiser Neil Young who rekindles romance under a harvest Moon. The autumn moon was said to help farmers working to bring in their crops. Under the moon they could continue to be productive by the moonlight even after the sun had set. Just as Zoomers, the 45+ are interested in keeping our romantic lives productive. Love is wonderful in the Autumn of our lives.

Though this time of year saddens me a little– the death of the flowers in my garden and a chill that permeates the air, I remind myself to get wildly enthusiastic about the little things that brighten my spirits. I could play in the leaves and still skip down the street or run against the fall wind. I suppose my communication to you if you too are saddened this September, is to find the things that will bring passion to your life and give you some joy. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The September winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like Autumn leaves.