“September” by Earth, Wind & Fire is synonymous with celebration. Nary a wedding, bar mitzvah, retirement party, or any event with a dance floor goes by without it being played. It’s a song about nostalgia, the perfect weather ushered in by the change from summer to fall, and that blissful “Ba-dee-yah!” feeling that we’ve all felt but couldn’t quite put into words.
The song also has a personal history for the band. The first lyric, “Do you remember, the 21st night of September?” was a reference to the day when the band’s frontman, Maurice White’s son, Kahbran, was expected to be born.
The song will never go away because there’s always an occasion for it to be played in a movie or TV show, whether it’s The Nice Guys (2016), Night at the Museum (2006) or Trolls (2016). It was named the 65th Greatest Song of All Time by Rolling Stone and in, 2019, was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. So, as long as the American experiment stands, people will be celebrating with “September.”
What does it mean?
Even though it’s clear that the song is about romance in September, a lot of people are confused about the song’s lyrics. Particularly, the line in the hook that goes, “Ba-dee-ya / Say, do you remember? / Ba-dee-ya / Dancin’ in September / Ba-dee-ya / Never was a cloudy day.“ Then comes the bouncy bassline and a post-chorus that goes, “Ba-du, ba-du.”
Many a casual listener has tried to make sense of the “Ba-dee-yah” line, thinking the band is singing “Party on,” instead of realizing that it’s really just scat singing. The funny part is that the “Ba-dee-yah” was first meant as a placeholder lyric made up by White in the studio.
“The kind of, go-to phrase that Maurice used in every song he wrote was ‘ba-dee-ya,’ ” the song’s co-writer Allee Willis recalled. “So right from the beginning he was singing, ‘Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember / Ba-dee-ya, dancing in September.’ And I said, ‘We are going to change ‘ba-dee-ya’ to real words, right?’”
“Never let the lyrics get in the way of the groove”
“Finally, after begging for months to change that lyric, the very LAST night—the master has to be done by midnight and it’s around 10 o’clock—I go into the studio and he’s doing the final vocal and I drop to my knees and clutch his thigh (Maurice White had the best thighs in the music industry!) and I say, ‘Please can we change the ‘Ba-dee-yah’ to real words?’” Willis told the Library of Congress.
In the final moments before the song was to be completed, White refused to change the “Ba-dee-yah” lyric, but it wasn’t out of stubbornness. It was part of his musical philosophy. “ I condense what he said to me as ‘never let the lyrics get in the way of the groove.’ If the melody, beat, and spirit are there, then everyone will know—emotionally they will know—what you’re saying,” Willis said.
There are some feelings (especially celebratory ones) that are hard to put into words; the greatest songwriters know this. From John Lennon proclaiming “Goo goo g’joob” on “I am the Walrus” to Suzanne Vega’s “Doo-doo-doos” on “Tom’s Diner” to Andre 3000 screaming “Hey ya!” on his 2003 hit of the same name, sometimes literal words aren’t enough. “Ba-dee-ya” may not make literal sense, but when combined with that joyous disco beat and a catchy bassline, we know exactly what it means.
