New month. September. It always reminds me of back-to-school, of the start of fall, coffees and scarves and sweater weather – even if September is never sweater weather in Southern California. I’m still longing for it, feeling Autumn’s call, my favorite season since forever.

I’m starting this month with writing motivation pumping through my veins. It’s always like this on first days, but I’m trying to focus even more today, and this month. I’m trying to find a way to keep that first-day energy for all the days to come. August was all about reigniting my creative side, uncovering truths as I started therapy again, and finding inspiration mostly in the films I saw (specifically Rocketman and Where’d You Go, Bernadette?) and within my friendships with other creative souls. Writers need community and it’s out there to be found. I just have to remember to engage with it, with myself, with my inner muse, and with the other writers in my life.

I read a quote recently from Ram Dass that essentially said: “We are all walking each other home”. It stuck with me. As alone as I have felt lately, I am not alone. I have others to walk home and they are there walking me home, too. We need to be there for each other. We need each other. That need is real and valid and necessary.

“Dog Days are Over” by Florence and the Machine always feels anthemic to me. It is one of those early morning inspiration songs, the aural ass-kicking get out of bed and do something kind of song. Seems the best choice to start this new month with, and to begin September’s Women in Music (from all eras) Song of the Day theme.

The”dog days” of Summer are over. Come and get us, Fall. We’ve been waiting for you.

“Dog Days are Over” by Florence and the Machine
from the album, Lungs (2009)
Song of the Day
Women In Music September

“Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back.
Struck from a great height,
by someone who should know better than that.”

“Dog Days are Over” was inspired by a giant text installation of the same name by the artist Ugo Rondinone, which Florence used to see every day riding her bike over Waterloo Bridge. She told Mojo magazine (April 2012 edition) about the rainbow-hued text:

“It was plastered over the South Bank in London for six months and I rode past it on my bike every day. It’s a reference to the dog star, Sirius: when it was closest to the Earth, all the animals would get languid and sleepy; when it moved away, they’d wake up. I’ve tried to get in touch with him to say thanks.”

(from Songfacts)

“Dog Days Are Over” was recorded with no instruments in a studio the “size of a loo”.

The song was produced and mixed by James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco and The Last Shadow Puppets. He is also credited as playing piano and guitar on the record.

Welch co-wrote the song with Isabella Summers, who is also credited as the song’s co-producer, and played piano on the record. Welch and Summers also teamed up for the percussion on the track, together with Charlie Hugall.

“Dog Days Are Over” also features musicians Tom “Moth” Monger (harp), Bruce White (viola), Everton Nelson (violin), Christopher Lloyd Hayden (drums) and Rob Ackroyd (guitar). Jimmy Robertson, extensively involved in the recording of the band’s debut record Lungs, recorded and mixed “Dog Days” as well. (from Wikipedia)

“Dog Days are Over” (live on Letterman) by Florence and Machine

Oh my stars, I miss the live music from David Letterman’s late-night show. So much.

“Dog Days are Over” celebrates the persistence of happiness and the way we often run from it, push it away, wreck it with our humanness. Some days this song hits me so hard in its truths that tears come.

“Happiness hit her like a train on a track.
Coming towards her,
stuck still no turning back.
She hid around corners,
and she hid under beds.
She killed it with kisses,
and from it, she fled.
With every bubble, she sank with a drink,
and washed it away down the kitchen sink.”

My issues have chased away happiness. My anxieties and fears, and the flood of emotions I experience have caused me to run away from happiness, too. Its kept me locked in a state of paralysis when it comes to creating, from writing, from finishing projects that mean the world to me. I’m entering this September with strong defiance, a happiness persistence, and a fire relit inside of me to keep on, to keep going, to keep writing and creating, and to finish something for once. To not run away from it because those “dog days are over”.

Be sure to follow September’s Women in Music Song of the Day theme on Spotify, YouTube, and Pandora. Let me know who you’d like to see featured this month, as well. You can comment below, or email me directly at lyrique.discorde@gmail.com