Two Bittersweet Ballads Teamed Up in a Melancholy Medley

As I write this post it’s only a little over a week until Labor Day, the official end of summer. Fall is my favorite time of year: I love the colors, the smells, and the crisp air. I remember so vividly how exciting it was for me as a kid to go shopping for school supplies with my mom. There was the pristine Big Chief tablet (a paper one with lines, not an iPad) and new pencils. Maybe even an unsmudged pink eraser. Everything seemed possible.

But for some autumn is a sad season, as it starts the inevitable slide toward winter with its darkness and cold. Two songs with lyrics by Johnny Mercer portray this viewpoint: “Autumn Leaves” and “When October Goes.” They’ve been put together in a lovely medley by the modern composer/arranger Paul Langford, a true powerhouse whose arrangements I’ve sung myself. Both of these songs have a fascinating backstory.

Let’s take a look first at “Autumn Leaves.” Its first iteration was as a French art song that appeared in a 1946 film. Originally titled Les Feuilles Mortes, which translates to “the dead leaves,” it caught the attention of Mercer’s co-worker at Capitol Records, Mickey Goldsen. He begged Mercer, who by this time had become an established lyricist, to put the rather nuanced and subtle French wording into English. Mercer eventually obliged, producing something much more simple and straightforward than the original and which sold very well. Mercer said later that he made more money from “Autumn Leaves” than from any other song he wrote—and that includes such mega-hits as “Moon River” and  “That Old Black Magic,” as well as many, many others. While Mercer was capable of composing melodies, he preferred writing lyrics—in particular, being given a tune and then working to find words to fit it. In “Leaves,” we’re told a very simple story in quite sparse words: there was a summer romance, but it ended with the beloved’s departure that took place (probably) in autumn, since the speaker’s sense of loss is especially strong when the leaves start falling. It doesn’t hurt that the melody is truly lovely, composed by the Hungarian-born Joseph Kosma for the original film music.

The other song in the medley, “When October Goes,” was a posthumous collaboration between Mercer and Barry Manilow. Huh? You’d be forgiven if you found that sentence confusing, as the story behind it is somewhat complicated. But it’s also rather touching. Here’s what happened:

Mercer’s biggest hits had some during the 1940’s, but he continued his notable successes well into his later years as he adapted to new music styles. In the last year of his life he became quite fond of Barry Manilow as a result of Manilow’s first hit, “Mandy,” the title of which was the same as Mercer’s daughter, Amanda.

Mercer died in 1976 of brain cancer, and in 1983 his widow decided to give Manilow a stack of lyrics that Mercer had written but which had never been put to music. Here’s how the website SongFacts describes what happened:

“She wanted me to take a crack at them,” Manilow recalled in the liner notes to his Complete Collection And Then Some anthology. “I was flattered and very excited. These lyrics are priceless to me and remain in the same manila envelope that they came in. . . . The melody [to “When October Goes”] came so easily that I believe he might have been giving me a little nudge here and there to help me along,” he said.

It would be so interesting to know how Ginger Mercer came across that manila envelope and why it took her seven years to hand it over to Manilow, but that’s something that will have to remain a mystery. All we have are Mercer’s beautiful words. Note that he sets his lyrics in October, a month that is clearly moving into winter, and not September, with its bright crispness. I’ve written quite a bit about this whole “liminal,” or “threshold,” time of year in a post about a Halloween concert that the Cherry Creek Chorale gave several years ago. Take a look if you’d like to learn more about the origins of this holiday and the significance of the season.

Note how the lyrics begin:

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

Such a confluence of images! The first snow is beginning and smoke is rising from the chimneys as fires are lit to ward off the cold. The speaker sees planes flying away and children running home, but he’s not a part of either group. All he can do is stand and watch—and long for the past. It’s twilight, the end of the day, often called “the blue hour.” One could spend a lot of time picking apart Mercer’s wording, but perhaps it’s better just to let the lyrics resonate on their own.

Langford has put together an arrangement that “is respectful of both songs, weaving them together to sing a message of loving someone who’s gone as well as growing older and remembering days past.” I always like to include video of a live performance if at all possible, but I saw nothing on YouTube to inspire me, so here’s the performance put out by the publisher:

And of course I have to include Barry Manilow’s version of the October song: