The way the calendar is working with my blogging habits means that I either need to give you my review of September’s posts just as the month is closing or wait for nearly a week after. So I’m doing it now. And that title? No, I haven’t taken to mowing lawns or smoking – it’s just a random title plucked out of the air which may have a song attached to it. This is my thirteenth post of the month, and here are reminders of the previous twelve.

I began as I usually do, calendar permitting, with the previous review, which came at you on 1 September in the shape of The First Day After August. This gave you the usual review of my posts, with a title cunningly adapted from a rather lovely – though obscure – Carole King song.

There were four Tuesday Tunes offerings this month. Taking them in chronological order, the first was Tuesday Tunes 165: American Favourites, for which I took another trip into the list I compiled many months ago of songs which have become favourites in the sixty years or so that I have been listening to music. As the title suggests, this was a selection entirely of American acts, and the music came from Bruce Springsteen, 10,000 Maniacs, Ry Cooder, R.E.M. and John Mellencamp. Probably a fairly predictable set for anyone who knows my taste!

I followed that up with Tuesday Tunes 166: Celebrity. The title was self-explanatory, though the songs took very different approaches to the meaning of the word, from the jokey to the heartfelt. The music was provided by Brad Paisley (a real hoot, if you haven’t see the video), The Kinks, The Byrds, Lady Gaga, and the lovely Brynn Andre.

The other two for the month were both reruns of themes I had used before, but with an almost entirely different selection of songs. The only return visitor was the opener for Tuesday Tunes 167: Run (A Rerun) which gave me the chance to tell again the story of when an artist found one of my posts that featured his song and kindly gave me some very helpful comments. The original piece then got a follow up from me, and there is a link to that in this month’s post if you haven’t seen it. That artist was Dax, and the other tunes in the new set came from REO Speedwagon, The Steve Miller Band, The Chicks, and Paul McCartney And Wings.

The final one for the month, earlier this week, was prompted by our recent weather, and kind of bookended the UK summer with an autumnal return to a theme that I had featured twice in the spring. This was Tuesday Tunes 168: Rain Returns, in which the wet stuff prompted music by Bryan Ferry, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cowboy Junkies, Peter Gabriel, and a return for John Mellencamp.

That takes us neatly into my other regular feature, Song Lyric Sunday. As you probably know I don’t choose the themes for these myself, so my selections do sometimes take me out of my comfort zone. But there’s nothing wrong with broadening your musical horizons, is there? The first one of the month is very much a case in point for that, as it was Song Lyric Sunday: Bakersfield. As is often the case this one sent me to Wikipedia to find out what I could be playing as a song that featured the “Bakersfield Sound,” about which I knew next to nothing. This took me down the route of playing a Merle Haggard song for the first time ever, and I added to that a track by The Rolling Stones which actually mentions the city of Bakersfield in its title. Cheating? Who? Me?

The following week saw what is becoming an annual event from Jim Adams, who runs this show, in which he leaves the music open to “user choice.” For this I gave you Song Lyric Sunday: Then And Now, in which I continued with The Rolling Stones from the previous week with one of their Sixties hits, coupled with a brand new track just released as the lead single off their new album, which comes out on 20 October. I haven’t included a video from one of the previous month’s posts in one of these reviews before, but I’m going to do so now. This was by a distance my most ‘liked’ post of the month, and this song and video are absolute belters:

See what I mean? The actor having a blast in that is Sydney Sweeney, if you didn’t know.

Next up we were invited to play something recorded for Apple Records – the Beatles’ label, nothing to do with Steve Jobs. I rather imaginatively called my piece Song Lyric Sunday: Two Bites Of An Apple, a reference to my playing two songs from James Taylor’s debut album, which was recorded for and released by the label. They are both beautiful little gems, and set the tone for the lovely music he has continued to give us throughout his career.

For the final one of the month we were asked to play something by a band with a food related name. I chose two songs for this, in Song Lyric Sunday: Cream And Vinegar. Not a mixture I’d recommend in culinary terms, but they were two good songs, one you might recognise – by Cream – and one you probably wouldn’t – by Vinegar Joe, which is the band where both Elkie Brooks and Robert Palmer started out.

That just leaves my midweek posts, the ones I give you on a Thursday or Friday to sit in the gap between Tuesdays and Sundays. For the first one in September I took a return trip to one of my occasional series, in Friday Funnies 3. These hopefully gave you a laugh or more, and came from Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, a couple of quick clips from Mrs Brown’s Boys, continued the vaguely Irish theme with a wonderful comedy song by Fascinating Aïda, followed by an excerpt from the classic British comedy series Only Fools And Horses, and closed with another comedy song, this time by the late – and much missed – Victoria Wood.

For the next week I did something a little different. I had been thinking about comments I had been sharing on mine and other blogs about how our musical tastes vary, and this turned into What We Like. I went on one of my occasional rambles into a discussion of whether it can ever be right to denigrate someone’s musical taste as being bad, or worse than our own, or whether it is just an example of the infinite variety that music can give us. I clearly subscribe to the latter viewpoint, though that doesn’t stop me adding the occasional tongue in cheek comment when I don’t like a song. But that just makes our tastes different and, sadly, this is something that we see all too often in modern day life, fuelled in particular by places like Twitter (or should I say X marks the spot?), which have led us into an environment in which disagreement can lead to hatred. If you haven’t seen the post I’d be interested to know your thoughts on it. It also comes with the bonus of my all time favourite song, which I played as an example of how my taste may differ from yours.

That just leaves one more post to cover. This was last week’s, in which I featured the remarkable work being carried out by the Playing For Change organisation and its related Foundation. If you don’t know of them I can recommend a look at the music they help to create: some of it is wonderfully joyous.

That is just about it for the month, apart from my usual sign off of the song that I borrowed for today’s title. I said earlier that James Taylor has given us much beautiful music over the years, and here is another example of that:

That is a track from James Taylor’s October Road album, which was released in August 2002, peaking at #4 in the US and #39 in the UK. It is a typically lovely song, and a word should be said for the video I shared, which was filmed by a chap called Paul Joy, who is a freelance filmmaker/videographer based in Norfolk, here in the UK. He works on a wide range of projects and this little film is a beautiful fit for the song. And the story has a whole team behind it too!

So, that was my blogging September, which is completed with this piece. I hope you’ve found something amongst these to enjoy, and a new month will be starting on Sunday with a new Song Lyric Sunday post. See you then!