Top Ten Autumn Songs

It feels a bit weird writing about autumn songs when we're clearly in the middle of the summer that never was, but there're a lot of songs to celebrate in this category so here goes!

1. Autumn Leaves - performed by Miles Davis.
So many people have recorded this song, but I guess my favourite version has to be a Cannonball Adderley recording featuring Miles Davis.

2. Autumn Leaves - performed by Eva Cassidy.
This is definitely my second favourite version!  Amazing vocals.

3. Autumn in New York - performed by Sarah Vaughan

4. Early Autumn - performed by Anita O'Day

5. September in the rain - performed by Tina May.
I love the way that Tina does a verse or two in French.  It's on the album "I'll Take Romance."

6. September song - performed by Gill manly.
It's on the album "With a Song in My Heart," and features Guy Barker on the trumpet.  Gill includes the verse, and doesn't change the gender - which I think is great, because it keeps the scanning and rhyming exactly as the composer intended it.

7. 'Tis Autumn - performed by Carmen McCrae

8. Autumn Fires - by Alex Hutton
Alex Hutton is a London-based pianist and exceptional composer.  His latest album will be released this month (album launch on Thursday 6th Oct at The Forge in Camden).  This tune is from his second album "Songs from the Seven Hills."

Now, two songs that have to make it into this top ten.  These are songs I've loved teaching my primary school to sing in assembly because they were favourites of mine as a child... anyone else remember them?

9. Autumn days 

lyrics hint: (Autumn days when the grass is jewelled and the silk inside a chestnut shell, jet planes meeting in the air to be re-fuelled, all these things I love so well.)  

I remember even when I was an 8-year-old that my teacher said "Now, jet planes don't meet in the air anymore - that happened a long time ago."  Must be a very old song!

10. Paint Box

lyrics hint: (Cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green, strawberries sweeter than any I've seen.  Beetroot purple and onions white, all grow steadily day and night.  The apples are ripe, the plums are red.  Broad beans are sleeping in a blankety bed)

One thing I love about this song is that on the opposite page to the music in the song book, there's a recipe for fruit fool.  How very healthy!

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