Sep­tem­ber hav­ing begun, let us lis­ten to its song. Rather, let us lis­ten to 38 of its songs. Or, speak­ing even more pre­cise­ly, 38 ver­sions of one of its songs: “Sep­tem­ber Song,” orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Ander­son for the 1938 musi­cal Knicker­bock­er Hol­i­day, which has since made its way into the Amer­i­can pop song­book. A few Sep­tem­bers ago, Ken Freed­man of famed inde­pen­dent radio sta­tion WFMU tried to spin every ver­sion of “Sep­tem­ber Song” he pos­si­bly could on his show. Toward the end of the month, he post­ed on WFMU’s Beware of the Blog a roundup of the 38 finest ver­sions he found. “Noth­ing beats the James Brown ver­sion from his 1970 LP Soul on Top,” says Freed­man, ”on which he was backed up by the Louis Bell­son Big Band, with arrange­ments by Oliv­er Nel­son.” You can hear it just below:

Some of these 38 only broad­ly count as a ver­sion of “Sep­tem­ber Song,” which, of course, only makes the col­lec­tion more inter­est­ing. Take, for instance, John Lennon’s “cov­er,” which occurs acci­den­tal­ly in the course of an unre­lat­ed record­ing. Freed­man describes it as “a work in progress called ‘Dear John,’ report­ed­ly one of the last songs Lennon was work­ing on before his death. It’s includ­ed here only because his melody and lyrics stum­ble into ‘Sep­tem­ber Song’ mid-way through the tune, elic­it­ing a chuck­le from Lennon.” Lis­ten to it, and con­tin­ue your month’s true musi­cal begin­ning, below:

Queen’s con­junc­tion of the high­ly the­atri­cal with the musi­cal­ly vir­tu­oso set the bar for rock opera as high as it will go. Fred­die Mer­cury and Bri­an May were such extra­or­di­nar­i­ly tal­ent­ed musi­cians that it seems impos­si­ble for any­one to do their com­po­si­tions jus­tice in cov­er ver­sions, and I can’t think of any­one who has. Until now, per­haps. Because now, I have seen pianist Natalia Pos­no­va cov­er Queen’s 1980 movie theme song “Flash,” writ­ten for the, shall we say, less-than-mem­o­rable Flash Gor­don film of the same year. The orig­i­nal song is an almost ridicu­lous­ly cool oper­at­ic rock anthem, fea­tur­ing every­thing we love about the clas­sic Queen song: John Deacon’s tense, thump­ing bassline, Roger Taylor’s explo­sive drum fills, Bri­an May’s gui­tar arpeg­gios, and, of course, vocal har­monies the likes of which the Mor­mon Taber­na­cle Choir might envy.

Natalia Posnova’s ver­sion fea­tures none of these things. Only a piano, and in the video, her shiny red Flash Gor­don-themed out­fit. Nev­er­the­less, she man­ages to com­plete­ly cap­ture the dra­ma of the orig­i­nal in her ver­sion, titled “Flash Fan­ta­sy.” She cer­tain­ly con­vinced Bri­an May, who writes on his blog, “THIS WOMAN IS EXTRAORDINARY! I just ‘dis­cov­ered’ Natalia Pos­no­va. She is an amaz­ing pianist and inter­preter of songs. And I do not use this term light­ly. This video clip is worth a mil­lion hits. I hope it gets them … I have seri­ous­ly,  in all these years, nev­er seen or heard any­thing like this. To see this amount of beau­ty, tal­ent,  inno­va­tion and pure bravu­ra in one shot is astound­ing.” He hopes to see her live some­day. Above, she tack­les anoth­er the­atri­cal Queen song, “Who Wants to Live For­ev­er,” this time in suit­able evening wear for the hyper­dra­mat­ic bal­lad. Posnova’s ren­di­tions bring to the fore­ground the clas­si­cal har­monies embed­ded in these songs. For more on Posnova’s inter­pre­ta­tions of Queen, see Fred­die Mercury’s friend Peter Free­stone and Pos­no­va her­self dis­cuss her approach in the video below, and enjoy her take on anoth­er love­ly bal­lad, “Don’t Try So Hard.”

HT to OC read­er, Dirk, for send­ing this along.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gui­tarist Bri­an May Explains the Mak­ing of Queen’s Clas­sic Song, ‘Bohemi­an Rhap­sody’

Queen Doc­u­men­tary Pays Trib­ute to the Rock Band That Con­quered the World

Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury and David Bowie on the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track for the Queen Hit ‘Under Pres­sure,’ 1981

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Some of the great­est rock and roll songs are also dire apoc­a­lyp­tic warn­ings. When rock stars pull their heads out of their hedo­nis­tic you-know-whats and look around, things can look pret­ty grim indeed. Think, for exam­ple, of The Stones’ “Gimme Shel­ter” or CCR’s “Bad Moon Ris­ing.” Nei­ther is either band’s scari­est song, but they’re both chock full of dis­as­ter, nat­ur­al and oth­er­wise, speak­ing to the sense of doom most every­one seemed to feel in 1969 when both tracks were released.

Fast for­ward ten years and rock and roll is most­ly dead, punk has peaked, and The Clash are try­ing to make it all new, inject­ing their music with reg­gae and rock­a­bil­ly and a lot of right­eous out­rage (tem­pered by a healthy sense of humor). In 1979, the band released their sem­i­nal dou­ble album Lon­don Call­ing, with its dire, apoc­a­lyp­tic title track (above), warn­ing of an ice age, the sun’s end, and a “nuclear error.” (Read the lyrics here.)  No longer are we just deal­ing with ho-hum war and mur­der or Bib­li­cal plagues. Joe Strum­mer and com­pa­ny took on the end of the world, ini­ti­at­ing the late cold-war nuclear anx­i­ety in 80s punk and new wave lyrics from The Dead Kennedys to The Smiths.

In a recent inter­view with the Wall Street Jour­nal, the three sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the band, all near­ing 60, looked back on the writ­ing and record­ing of that anthemic song, dis­sect­ing the line about “pho­ny Beat­le­ma­nia” and recall­ing the eco­log­i­cal and eco­nom­ic crises that angered and fright­ened them into inspi­ra­tion. Co-writer and gui­tarist Mick Jones dis­cuss­es the influ­ence of six­ties rock on the song’s com­po­si­tion, say­ing, “As musi­cians, you take the past with you, don’t you? The Bea­t­les, Stones, Kinks and Small Faces had done some­thing new and dif­fer­ent and I want­ed us to do that, too.” Bassist Paul Simonon, whose icon­ic bass-smash­ing pho­to graced the cov­er of the album, talks about the band’s his­to­ry and con­text:

In the ’70s, when we formed the band, there was a lot of ten­sion in Britain, lots of strikes, and the coun­try was an eco­nom­ic mess. There also was aggres­sion toward any­one who looked different—especially the punks. So the name the Clash seemed appro­pri­ate for the band’s name.

Drum­mer Top­per Head­on talks tech­nique, and all three mem­bers are open about their influ­ences and inspi­ra­tions for the song. The inter­view comes along just as the band pre­pares to release a 13-disc box set, Sound Sys­tem that Mick Jones—in a Rolling Stone interview—promises will be the band’s final state­ment. “This is it for me,” says Jones, “and I say that with an excla­ma­tion mark.” Read about his inten­tions for the col­lec­tion and more Clash his­to­ry in that excel­lent short inter­view here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rare Live Footage Doc­u­ments The Clash From Their Raw Debut to the Career-Defin­ing Lon­don Call­ing

“Joe Strummer’s Lon­don Call­ing”: All Eight Episodes of Strummer’s UK Radio Show Free Online

The Clash Live in Tokyo, 1982: Watch the Com­plete Con­cert

Mick Jones Plays Three Clas­sics by The Clash at the Pub­lic Library

The Clash Star in 1980′s Gang­ster Par­o­dy Hell W10, a Film Direct­ed by Joe Strum­mer

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

One day Lenny Kravitz was sit­ting with some friends on a ter­race in New Orleans when he heard a famil­iar sound. A group of high school stu­dents from a bap­tist church in Texas was per­form­ing his hit “Fly Away” on the steps across Decatur Street from Jack­son Square in the French Quar­ter.

Kravitz decid­ed he want­ed to join in. One of his friends went down and asked the group’s direc­tor if that would be alright. He said yes, it would. So when the famous musi­cian arrived, the group start­ed play­ing the song again from the top. “It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever expe­ri­enced,” Kelvin Reed, direc­tor of the Voice of Praise choir from the First Bap­tist Church in Lewisville, Texas, told the Dal­las Morn­ing News after­ward. “All of my stu­dents said, ‘Kelvin, did you plan that?’ That was just one of those unique expe­ri­ences.”

The inci­dent hap­pened on June 25, 2010. Back then, Kravitz owned a Cre­ole cot­tage in the French Quar­ter and lived in New Orleans part-time. “It was prob­a­bly one of the most incred­i­ble things that’s ever hap­pened to me,” choir mem­ber and lead gui­tarist Michael Smeaton told the Morn­ing News. “This is a famous musi­cian. He just comes down and wants to jam with us. It makes you real­ize as a musi­cian you have this sense of kin­ship, and you all come from the same expe­ri­ences.”

via That Eric Alper

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Paul Simon Feelin’-Very-Groovy Moment

13,500 Sing “Hey Jude” in Trafal­gar Square

Blind Gui­tarist Lives Out Dream at U2 Show